Weekly Photo Challenge: Unusual

Location: Hallstatt, Austria
 
While visiting Austria, I was amazed at how beautiful and well-maintained the cemeteries are. The graveyard plots look more like small gardens.

 
Americans may find it unusual, but you don’t buy a gravesite in this part of the world. It’s leased for a certain period of time instead. In Halstatt, for instance, I was told that a family can lease the plot and maintain the rights to it until its last member dies.

 
As the need arises, the family prepares the plot for reuse by exhuming the remains of the current occupant and the bones are either transferred to the ossuary or cremated. In some cases, the skull is saved and cleaned and put on display in the Beinhaus (Bone House). Once the last member of the family dies, the plot becomes available for another family to take over.

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