Day 39: Pere LaChaise

Today I visited the famous Pere LaChaise cemetery in the 11th arrondissement. I had looked up an online tour so I was pretty much set, the cemetery is so huge and winding with so many different people and monuments that its almost impossible to find the people who you are looking for without some sort of guide. It's beautiful though and its all that people hype it up to be. I'm going to write captions under the pictures here because some of the graves are hard to read and are lesser known. I also don't mean to offend anyone's intelligence, most of these captions are for Jade and Riley who definitely don't know most of these people.

This is the memorial to soldiers of other European countries lost fighting for the French.

This is the tomb of Oscar Wilde who was a famous writer. It has been a tradition that women would kiss his grave with lipstick on it however it is now guarded by a glass case and there are signs all over asking that people not deface the tomb.

These are all tombs honoring those lost in WW2 either at Nazi concentration camps or during the resistance. This part of the cemetery was particularly touching because the statues are so wrought with emotion. They are emaciated and dark and in tortured positions. On one set of statues honoring those lost at Auchwitz the people are made of strips of metal which both represent their emaciated bodies and the stripes on their uniforms. It was very effective in creating a somber and yet respectful memorial.

This is the tomb of Edith Piaf who was a very very famous French singer. She grew up singing on the streets in Paris until she was discovered. Her songs helped boost moral in a wartime Paris. Caught up in alcoholism and other problems, the end of her life was full of troubles and woes but her music is still legendary and the movie La Vie en Rose about her life won a bunch of Oscars. 

These are just some pictures which don't even do the cemetery justice. 

Moliere was a playwright and he is partially responsible for the celebrities buried here since he was the first celebrity to chose to be buried here as a publicity stunt. He was famous for saying "we only die once and for such a long time". His tomb is in a very cool and tranquil part of the cemetery on a dirt path near fountains and gardens.

This is the grave of Chopin who was a famous conductor who was hailed as a child prodigy until he moved to France to escape the pressure everyone put on him. In Paris people loved his music and his ability to emit every emotion through the piano. His grave was really beautiful, I always love the weeping women on graves, its so touching and beautiful.

This is the grave of Heloise and Abelard who are the oldest residents of pere lachaise. Abelard who started secularism in Paris also founded the University of Paris before being hired to tutor Heloise. The two fell madly in love and eloped. When she gave birth, her uncle found out and separated the two who then lived their whole lives separated in a convent and monastery until they died (Abelard on trial for heresy). It's a sad story but they were eventually reunited to be buried together here and the stones that make up their tomb are taken from Heloise's original tomb at her convent.

Rossini was a famous composer known most for the William Tell Overture and the Barber of Seville.

Haussman was the man who made Paris what it is today. He created the sewer system, the road system, the rotary in front of the Arc de Triomphe. Most of the structure behind Paris was made by this guy.

Sarah Bernhardt was a very famous American actress.

Marcel Proust was a very famous writer.

This was my favorite tomb in Pere LaChaise. I think that the mourning women are so poetic and this one was so beautiful.

This is the tomb of Gertrude Stein an American writer who was better known for being a patron to many famous artists and writers like Picasso and Hemingway who sought her approval. She was known for saying "a rose is a rose is a rose." Another fun fact is that on her death bed someone asked her "what's the answer?" and her last words were "what's the question?" I love this about her and I love that her grave is so understated that most people never find it in the cemetery and I literally had to edit this for so long in order for her name to show up because its barely even carved into the simple stone.

The most famous grave in the entire cemetery is Jim Morrison's who was the lead singer for the Doors. His grave used to be this funky singer guy until some fanatic stole it. Now the grave is closed off and it is really hard to get a picture of it. Jim Morrison retired to Paris (at 27) to write and be peaceful and used to sit in La Flore and Les Deux Magots (where I ate lunch!) until he died of an overdose. The owner of the cemetery initially wouldn't agree to let him be buried here until his friends told the owner that Jim Morrison was a famous writer.