Travel Date: Friday, May 10, 2024
We spent most of the last day of our travels in a cemetery: but what a cemetery it was! The list of famous people who are buried at Cimetière Père Lachaise in the 20th Arrondissement seems endless, and the temptation to go visit “just one more,” and then “just one more” again, is overwhelming. There are authors, musicians, scientists, philosophers and more. Notable figures about whom most of us have heard for our entire lives turn out to have been real people who came to their inevitable ends one way or another and were laid to rest in Paris.
We walked until we could walk no more and barely scratched the surface (as it were), but even then we only left because as closing time approached, an official came along with a very large and very loud handbell, which she rang as she started herding everyone toward the exit gates. Begging for sympathy because you just had to visit one more grave was pointless. The bell ringers (probably necessarily) have hearts as stony as the monuments. (It’s not just me. See this post, “TERRIBLE STAFF – beware of the bell ringer,” on TripAdvisor.)
We spent about five hours wandering about this beautiful 44-hectare (110-acre) property, as do nearly 3.5 million other visitors every year. I am very grateful to my friend Jacqui Dumas who urged us to visit this place, and gave us other excellent tips that helped make the entire trip to Paris very special.
The cemetery is named after the long-time confessor of Louis XIV, Père Français de La Chaise, who had lived on this property for many years. It was was established in 1804 by Napoleon, who “had declared during the Consulate that ‘Every citizen has the right to be buried regardless of race or religion'” (Wikipedia).
As you will notice from the photos, Père Lachaise is a “garden cemetery” and the grounds are stunning and wonderfully maintained. It would be a superb place to wander or to sit and read a book even if one weren’t surrounded by reminders of some of the most interesting and notable people in history.
As well as graves of the famous and not so famous, the huge property includes a crematorium and a columbarium, as well as French war graves, memorials from both world wars, and an ossuary containing the bones of 2500 French soldiers who were killed in the siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871).
Probably the most visited grave is that of Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors, who died of a drug overdose in Paris in 1971 and allegedly wanted to be buried at Père Lachaise in order to be near one of his literary heroes, Oscar Wilde. Morrison’s original grave in the cemetery was disturbed and vandalized by Morrison “fans” so often, as were other graves nearby (collateral damage), that Parisiens were outraged. In 1990, the gravesite was dismantled – even the headstone had to be demolished – and a new one with barriers around it took its place.
Morrison fans visiting the grave often stick chewing gum to a tree, now wrapped in bamboo, near the grave. I was unable to discover the reason for this tradition.
Montmartre
After we had worn out our legs and feet at the Cimetière Père Lachaise, we realized that we’d better check out Montmartre, the 130m-high hill in north-central Paris, because we were leaving Paris the next day and wouldn’t have another chance. We did not intend to walk to the top, but when we got there… well, you know how it is with mountains. It was there, so up we went.
We toured the beautiful Sacre Couer Basilica which stands on the top of the hill, and then went out to look at the view of the city before making our way back down. We had to pick our way very carefully among people who were seated everywhere on the steps and the grass, enjoying the evening, chatting with one another and enjoying performances by buskers.
When we reached the bottom of the hill again, we discovered that, just a few feet away from where we had begun our climb, there was a funicular that we could have taken to the top, avoiding all those stairs.
By the time we had dinner and finally got back to our hotel, we had walked 16,500 steps or 11.62 km We were certainly ready to put our feet up, but it had been a perfect day and a perfect way to end our trip to Paris.
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