Like every year at the end of October in the last few decades, I spent some time in the cemetery, around the final resting place of my grandparents and some other deceased relatives.
After cleaning the tombstones and all that tomb stuff made of solid stone of the graves in Medulin, my hometown ...
... and eradicating the weeds that grew on the more modest grave in the graveyard of Marchana, the village situated about twenty kilometers north of there ...
... I took some time to walk around with no particular intent.
Just to feel the atmosphere ...
... and if possible, find something cool to photograph.
Before all that seasonal cemetery work ...
... I had to buy some lanterns and flowers that are usually used in this period.
This photograph was taken in front of the relatively small agricultural supply store in Medulin. They offer all those typical graveyard stuff besides the usual tools and seeds when All Saints' Day is near. I didn't buy the flowers here. Not because the flowers weren't good enough. The flowers were fine ...
... but the prices were more favorable in the local supermarket. These flowers, photographed in the trunk of my car, were bought in the Lidl store at the edge of town.
Here you can see a colorful arrangement made of artificial flowers.
After buying some other stuff in one of the big stores on the outskirts of Pula, the nearest city, I noticed a bouquet of fake flowers left in the parking lot.
It was a pretty unique situation. I never came across this kind of scene before.
The designated parking space is more or less the size of a typical grave, so now, with the flowers in the right place, the resemblance was amazing. I'll never look at this parking lot the way I looked at it before this encounter. The same day ...
... the 25th of October, I visited Marchana.
I mean, the graveyard of Marchana.
The weather was getting cloudy and the light above the northern horizon was pretty dramatic.
A trio that looked like a working crew was exploring something along the church's facade.
The Church of St. Peter and St. Paul is the biggest of the two churches in Marchana. It was built in the 15th century. The church tower was added later, in 1846.
Here you can see the fragment of an old artwork surrounded by a relatively new facade.
This is my grandmother that died when I was only three years old.
Here you can see my grandfather.
He died three years before the new millennium.
Near my grandparent's grave, there is this very old, completely horizontal tomb. It's completely different from anything else in this cemetery, and I like it. On the 25th of October, I haven't seen traces of flowers or lanterns on it.
Here you can see a line of tombs decorated with many, mostly fake, flowers.
This photograph shows a group of typical tombs made of black, white, and gray marble.
Here you can see a tombstone that stood out a bit. It was taller and the shape was different enough. In the background, you can also see a bit of the landscape outside the graveyard's wall.
This photograph ends the part of the post dedicated to my visit to the cemetery in Marchana on the 25th of October 2022.
On the way back home, less than a kilometer from the graveyard, I stopped for a minute by the side of the road, to photograph the buzzard that was resting on the old wall across the street.
The next day ...
... I spent the afternoon in the cemetery of Medulin ...
... only about five or six hundred meters from my house.
In the foreground of this picture, you can see the tomb of my grandparents and their parents from my mother's side of the family.
You can see them in these old monochrome portraits.
My grandfather and I were often working the agricultural stuff together. I liked that work and being surrounded by nature in the fields just outside the village. Medulin was much smaller back then.
On the tomb of my grandaunt and granduncle ...
... I found a huge rosemary shrub. This plant was much smaller last year.
A bit later, on my walk around the graveyard ...
... I passed through this passage ...
... that led me to the relatively new part of the Medulin's cemetery.
There I visited the tombs of some friends from elementary school who died pretty young.
While I was photographing around ...
... the partially cloudy sky was changing.
It was rapidly getting sunnier.
The sunlight gave a bit of life even to the artificial flowers ...
... and soon ...
... everything was more colorful.
A man in blue passed by ...
... and then, among all those flowers ...
... I noticed this lovely wreath made of clams.
This is yet another arrangement made of fake flowers.
The flowers shown in this photograph are real, for a change.
Here you can see a mix of real and fake plant parts. The elongated leaves are real. The pink roses aren't.
While I was photographing all this cemetery stuff ...
... a pigeon was observing the shooting from the graveyard's wall.
With this detail from one of the oldest tombstones ...
... is time to end the segment of the post dedicated to the 26th of October in Medulin's cemetery.
Yesterday, in the late afternoon, I was in Marchana again. To light the candle inside the lantern.
Do you remember the unique and slightly mysterious old tomb shown in the first part of the post? The one next to the place where my grandparents are buried?
This time, I saw some flowers there.
When I woke up today, early in the morning ...
... Medulin was enveloped in the fog ...
... so I walked to the graveyard ...
... to see how the place looks in that gloomy atmosphere.
It was very quiet ...
... and the red lanterns looked great in the gray morning.
I was rambling around ...
... in search of angles and compositions ...
... that can convey the immersive dark atmosphere.
At one point ...
... I passed by my grandparent's tomb, and then ...
... stopped for a minute by the place where my grandaunt and granduncle are buried. Two days earlier, my nephew cut the surplus rosemary that was covering the tomb.
The morning atmosphere was very inspiring ...
... so I took plenty of photographs.
More than I expected, definitively.
While walking around the newer, more modern part of the cemetery ...
... I realized for the first time that the lamp poles in that area look like candles ...
... especially when the lights are on.
This photograph was taken in the old part of the cemetery.
On the way out, near the old gate, I came across a memorable and slightly unexpected scene. In the line of similar tombs covered with marble ...
... one of those tombs was covered with grass. Can't tell you exactly why, but it looked like a visual pun.
AND THAT'S IT. AS ALWAYS IN THESE POSTS ON HIVE, THE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE MY WORK - THE END.
