Explore Paris: Pere Lachaise Cemetery

After four tourist trips to Paris (and living here for about 5 months), I have seen most of the common tourist attractions in this great city (notice: I say most, but definitely not all because there are a TON!). However, I had never been to Pere Lachaise Cemetery, so this was exciting for me! As usual, trusty Rick Steves had an excellent and informative tour for us to follow:

The cemetery was much more beautiful than I expected with its long, tree-lined streets and wonderfully diverse little chapels topping many of the graves:

Our first specific stop was at the grave of the great, gay 18th century author and playwright Oscar Wilde, best known for his rather darkly philosophical approach and his biting humor, as seen in The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Ernest, respectively. His kiss-covered and genitally defiled grave was interesting, to say the least:

We also saw the grave of the sharp-tongued Gertrude Stein:

And a beautifully modern memorial to those lost in Nazi Concentration camps:

One wall of the cemetery marks the spot of the end of a short-lived Paris Commune, during the Prussian occupation of France from 1870-1871. Here, the leaders of the commune were chased and killed, execution style, against this wall. The other interesting tidbit, to me at least, is that it was during this war and the siege of Paris that the Catholics of the city decided to build Sacre Coeur (the great white church at the top of Montmartre) as a sort of "praise God anyway" gesture, despite the war and terrible conditions. Anyway, here is the wall where the men were shot:

Edith Piaf held the next place of honor. Thanks to Miss Megan L, I happened to have Edith Piaf's famous "La Vie en Rose" on my ipod! So we let her warbling voice serenade us as we visited the grave of the great French singer and icon of post-WWII Paris.

Our next stop, surrounded by gorgeous flowers, was the grave of the 17th century humorist Moliere. In the great irony of ironies, Moliere's final performance was that of a hypochondriac, and his coughing fit during the play led right into his death a mere few hours later.

The most popular pilgrimage of this cemetery is undoubtedly the grave of Jim Morrison, surrounding by pictures, flowers, and trees carved with love notes:

We also saw the tomb of Heloise and Abelard, a couple from the 12th century with a very dramatic love story. Unfortunately, their tomb was under renovation and covered in scaffolding, so we found another photo online to give you an idea:

We saw a really cool cello on this one artist's tomb (apparently some of his own artwork):

And the tomb of the great Frederick Chopin, composer:

As well as that of Rossini, the composer of the William Tell Overture. If you don't recognize the name, please click this link because I know you'll recognize the music. For a highly entertaining version, try this one, quite appropriate due to the upcoming Mother's Day.

Last, but not least, we saw the grave of Hausmann (see previous posts), the master-planner of Parisian architecture and city style under Napoleon III:

Overall, much more entertaining that I thought a tour through a cemetery could be!