South of Capo Figara, behind the picturesque beach of Cala Greca, sits a small valley that slopes down towards the sea. Here you can find a small cemetery known as the Cimitero degli Inglesi.
The small cemetery is home to 13 graves and a stone parallelepiped in the shape of a pyramid, held up by two cross-studded juniper trunks. A marble headstone, erected in 1891 by the “Navigazione Generale Italiana”, honours five sailors who drowned when the Ligurian sailing ship “Generoso II” sunk in 1887.
The name Cimitero degli Inglesi came from folk tradition. For many years, there was a belief that the English sailors who drowned at Capo Figrai were buried under the cross. In reality, the only English soldier buried there is George Christian Bradshaw, who died on the Vulcan ship in 1900. His tomb is clearly visible with its large Celtic cross in white painted wood.
The other graves, marked by a small cross with two juniper trunks, are those of Italian sailors drowned in different shipwrecks over the course of the centuries. Word has it that some of those tombs house the remains of people from the Golfo Aranci whose names have sadly been lost as well as the exact location of their graves.
