Historic & hauntingly beautiful graveyards in New Orleans

While you're passing by, you might as well take a quick detour to the Museum of Death. It's more of a morbid collection of macabre ephemera, including gruesome crime scene and morgue photos, skulls, coffins, body bags, letters from serial killers, vintage mortician equipment, and more. It's definitely not for the faint of heart, and I don't say that lightly.

Hit up St. Louis Cemetery No. 2 to see the graves of saints and soldiers. Consecrated in 1823, it was originally meant to be placed far from the city center in an attempt to curb contagion. It received a bit of flooding after Hurricane Katrina, and you can still see evidence of this from the brownish waterline marks on the bottoms of some of the tombs.

Famous figures buried here include legendary jazz guitarist Danny Baker, 60s R&B singer Ernie K-Doe, and the Venerable Mother and potential candidate for sainthood Henriette DeLille, along with various New Orleans Mayors, politicians, and Confederate soldiers.

St. Louis No. 1 is the city's oldest and most famous burial ground. Opened in 1789, it has been in continuous use since its founding. You can only get in to see this graveyard with a guided tour, as concerns about vandalism caused the Catholic Diocese to close it to the public (if you have a family member buried here, you can apply for a pass as well). It's worth ponying up for access, though. Not only will you get to see the famous grave of notorious voodoo queen Marie Laveau, there's an assortment of other interesting things to see here as well, including the future final resting place of Nic Cage. He bought a crazy pyramid-shaped tomb in the cemetery for his burial... if he ever dies, that is.

Famous figures buried here include Homer Plessy, the plaintiff from the Plessy v. Ferguson case; Ernest Morial, the first African American mayor of New Orleans; Barthelemy Lafon, an architect who became one of Jean Lafitte's pirates and Paul Morphy, one of the world's first chess champions. Some suspect that Madame Delphine LaLurie, a famous murderess who was caught torturing and killing her slaves, is buried here as well. All of this in one square block!

The Saint Roch Chapel and Cemetery has its origins in one of the city's many yellow fever epidemics. In 1867, Reverend Peter Thevis began offering prayers to Saint Roch, who was a 1300s-era patron saint of good health. Saint Roch, as the story goes, was miraculously healed after treating victims of the black death in his small Italian town. When Thevis's community escaped the outbreak of yellow fever without a single death, he had the Gothic church erected in the saint's memory.

Today, the chapel is a very strange site to visit. Believers flock here to pray, and many leave behind prosthetics like polio braces, glass eyes, dental plates, and more, in addition to other offerings, after being healed. While the chapel itself is closed during repairs for termite damage, you can peek inside the windows, and the cemetery here is beautiful as well.

The final St. Louis Cemetery is No. 3. It's newer, opened in 1853, and the crypts tend to be more elaborate here. Think, 19th-century marble tombs, as opposed to the stone and plaster graves at other cemeteries. Despite heavy flooding during Katrina, it's in very good condition.

Famous figures buried here include ragtime composer Paul Sarebresole, photographer E. J. Bellocq, and painter Ralston Crawford.

Greenwood Cemetery & Mausoleum was also opened to provide relief for cemeteries overcrowded with yellow fever victims. It's also home to a mass grave of 600 Confederate soldiers. The centerpiece is an elegant, Gothic Fireman's Memorial dedicated to the volunteer firemen who died in the line of duty. Another tomb that's hard to miss is that of Lodge No.30 of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. The fraternal order's crypt is marked with, naturally, an elk statue. Greenwood also recently added a massive mausoleum in the 1980s to house more burials.

Famous figures buried here include several New Orleans mayors, several Confederate Generals (Young Marshall Moody, Thomas M. Scott, and James Argyle Smith), New Orleans Rhythm Kings jazz legend Leon Roppolo, and novelist John Kennedy Toole.

The Odd Fellows are one of the world's oldest fraternal societies. The Grand Lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows purchased the land for this cemetery in 1847, and it was dedicated in 1849 with a procession and ceremony, wherein the Odd Fellows relocated some of their members from other graveyards to burial plots here. The cast-iron gates were once decorated with Odd Fellows symbols like the widow and her children, the beehive, the all-seeing eyes of Diety, the world, the cornucopia, the Order’s initials, the five-pointed stars, and the Bible, but many of these have been stolen.

It's home to many crypts and mausoleums, including a strange, unmarked grave shaped like large rusted safe. The combination has been lost to time, and there's little chance of getting in. This cemetery is temporarily closed for repairs, but the hope is to reopen it once it's been fixed up.

Cypress Grove was originally founded to be a resting place for volunteer firemen. In fact, Greenwood was originally overflow for this graveyard. You'll see the tombs from various fire companies here.

Famous figures buried here include several New Orleans mayors and prominent local businessmen.