Žale, the cemetery where Plečnik parted the living from the dead with a gateway

Why is Žale a World Heritage Site?

Because UNESCO inscribed it in 2021 as part of Plečnik’s works in Ljubljana, under the name Garden of All Saints. It is also a cultural monument of national importance and carries the European Heritage Label, and Ljubljana was a founding member of the Association of Significant Cemeteries in Europe.

Its story had a low point. In 1979 funerals moved to New Žale, with the crematorium by architect Peter Kerševan, and Plečnik’s buildings fell into decay. After the political change of 1990 they were thoroughly restored and brought back into use. To the west, Marko Mušič won the 1982 competition to extend the cemetery, with an artificial mound and the national memorial to those who died in the 1991 war of independence.

Žale opening hours, entry and getting there

The cemetery opens daily from 7am to 7pm from 1 October to 31 March, and from 7am to 9pm from 1 April to 30 September. Entry is free. From March to October there are guided tours run by the Žale company with Ljubljana’s tourist information centre, and from April to early November LPP’s Kavalir cars circulate to help older visitors.

It lies outside the centre, at Med hmeljniki 2, and you get there by city bus; the company points to LPP’s route map. Remember that buses take no cash; I explain how to pay in getting around Ljubljana.

Žale on the Plečnik trail

It is a working cemetery, with funerals and families, so I would visit quietly and photograph no one. I would combine it with the rest of the Plečnik trail, Plečnik House in Trnovo and the National Library, on the same day. If architecture is your thing, it is, for me, the most rewarding trip outside the centre.

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From 1906 to Plečnik’s garden

After the 1895 earthquake, Ljubljana decided to open a new cemetery at Sveti Križ (Holy Cross). A small church with a priest’s house beside it went up in 1906, and in 1914 the city set up its funeral institute. After the First World War it wanted to reform traditional burials and asked Plečnik for a central mortuary next to the cemetery.

Plečnik changed the brief. According to the Žale company, he turned the idea of a single building into a vast Garden of All Saints surrounded by greenery, with a symbolic gateway separating the place of the living from that of the dead, and gave each of the deceased a chapel of rest named after their parish. Plečnik’s Žale came into use on 7 July 1940.

If you are staying the night, see the best hotel deals in Liubliana for your dates: the well-placed rooms go fast.