Bruce Lee and Anne Bronte - Tourists Tracing Ancestors and Finding Famous Graves

Bruce Lee and Brandon Lee Graves.

Problem
When you don't know anybody famous and can't afford tickets to shows featuring the famous, what can you do? Visit cemeteries and memorials. See gravestones of famous people whose fame has outlived them, people famous worldwide. Take a photo of a memorial which will interest everybody. I like graves with a picture of the person like the one of Bruce Lee.

My Top Ten Cemeteries & Cemetery Tours
1 London, England, Highgate Cemetery
2 Scotland Edinburgh cemetery
3 Scotland Lockerbie
4 USA Arlington
5 USA New Orleans
6 USA Civil War cemetery tour
7 France - Pere Lachaise, Paris
8 Czech Republic - Old Jewish cemetery
9 German - Belsen - memorial to Anne Frank
10 Romania - The Merry Cemetery

Photo from Wikipedia by Plucas58.

Strange that the first headstone had her age wrong.

Top Ten Memorable Graves / Memorials
Visit the grave or see the picture on the internet and you will remember it
1 UK Chief attraction in Highgate Cemetery - Karl Marx - huge bust, like his huge influence
2 Mexico - Trotsky - isolated, killed in his own home (now a museum) by an erstwhile 'friend'
3 Scotland - grey friars devoted dog  supposedly stayed on his master's grave, probably mainly because fed by cemetery custodian who promoted the tale - but dogs often hang around their former owner's grave, as do humans, so why let the truth get in the way of a good story
4 USA Al Jolson, singer, kneeling, arms outstretched, installed by cemetery owners to attract attention and more business
5 Prague, Rabbi Low who wrote The Golem, like God, and a fairy godmother in fairy tales, a creature who rescues captures the imagination and comforts
6 Brontes - I saw Anne Bronte's gravestone, nothing special, yet to her family, and her readers, very special
7 Memorial to Anne Frank at Belsen
8 Disraeli's gravestone at his home
9 Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera
10 Spike Milligan, comedian
Many more: Bruce Lee; Marilyn Monroe.

You can also see statues of many people at their birthplace or home town and statues at airports. See my previous posts mentioning musicians such as The Beatles, and sports personalities at football grounds and airports.

Top Gravestone Quotations

1 St Paul's - Sir Christopher Wren - for my memorial look around you.
2 For your tomorrow they gave their today (Kadimah and other WWII cemetery inscriptions.)
3 Old Martha Snell has gone away, she would if she could but she couldn't stay, she had two sore legs and a baddish cough but it was her cough that carried her off.
4 MOTHER. (Heading on many modern gravestones, UK, Christian and Jewish cemeteries.) Says it all, for the families of the mother, and onlookers. Succinct.
5 He was right, dead right as he sped along but he's just as dead as if he were wrong. My favourite. I always think of this when I see reports of fatal road accidents and when drivers try to pull out, have a near miss, and insist, "I had right of way!"
6 Spike Milligan, comedian, I told you I was ill. (See amusing videos of him being interviewed on You Tube.)

If you can't take a trip today, a trip around Wikipedia will reveal extraordinary, unusual and almost unknown graves. Here's one from Armenia, which looks almost cylindrical, with Hebrew writing on a Jewish gravestone. Photo by vahog851 in Wikipedia.

Tips
GRAVES
www.ancestry.com Lots of articles about your ancestors in the USA.
www.ancestry.co.uk
www.findagrave
Famous people and add your own ancestors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Brontë
If you want to type the accent over the e, hold down the e key and click on the correct accent when all the variation on e pop up.
Article on Alderney Street and Brady Jewish cemeteries in London's East End:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-40386777#_=_

TOURISM
Tourist Boards
www.visitlondon.com
www.visitbritain.com

FLIGHTS
GENERAL FLIGHT
Getting there
www.google.co.uk/flights

FLIGHTS USA/UK
https://www.skyscanner.net 
Virgin Airlines
www.virginatlantic.com
British Airways
www.britishairways.com

Flights EUROPE
Ryan Air from S t a n s t e d, UK; I have used to visit Prague, Czech Republic; Bucharest, Romania. You buy sandwiches on board or take your own food or eat at the airport first or all three. See my posts on Prague and Bucharest and S t a n s t e d.
Ryan Air
www.ryanair.com

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
See books on quotations: Quick Quotations; Who said What When (Amazon and Lulu.com)
Also on
Blogspot.com TravelwithAngelaLansbury AngelaLansburyAuthor AngelaLansburyspeeches
Facebook.com AngelaLansbury
LinkedIn Angela Lansbury
Twitter @AngelaTheAuthor
YouTube See videos by William Brougham of Angela speaking on grammar, spelling, restaurant etiquette, public speaking; comic poetry, author of books including travel guide
Please follow me and share links to my posts.