Pere Lachaise

Decided today to head to the outskirts of Paris at the 20th arrondissement, to the very famous "Pere Lachaise Cemetery" where so many artists are buried. Name a favorite dead writer, musician, painter or actor and more than likely they are interred here.

Again, we had an absolutely beautiful day for walking the city, sunshine till 10 p.m. at night (honestly), a slight breeze and no humidity to speak of.  When talking to my daughter about our impressions, aside from the elegance of Paris, we were surprised at all the people who were smoking (both inside restaurants everywhere on the streets), the many vespas whizzing by and the amazingly broad boulevards.

A quick "aside" here, I was amazed at the beautiful lay-out and architecture of Paris, and after researching the style of buildings so predominate in the city, I found that a great majority are "neo classical" stone structures. 

There is still an "alignment" law that specifies the building of new facades must be in accordance with the pre defined street width.  

"A building's height is limited according to the width of the streets it lines".

I was wondering why the city had such a beautiful lay-out, and why the buildings only appeared to be 5 or 6 stories high.

Nevertheless, back to Pere Lachaise Cemetery.

In our travels, I often like to visit the very old cemeteries of cities, they are often full of colorful tales, and absolutely beautiful, quiet, atmospheric areas to just stroll through and find famous plots where artists are buried. One of my favorite is the Bonaventure Cemetery in Charleston, S.C. where Conrad Aiken, Johnny Mercer, and others are laid to rest. Visiting Dylan Thoma's grave in Swansea, Wales is worth seeing, and you are supposed to bring a small bottle of liquor with you, to take a drink, then pour one onto his grave in memory!

 For today though, we took the metro, arrived at the Boulevard de Menilmontant, and armed with a trusty map (it is essential as 300,000 people are buried here) headed into the gates of the 

          "grandest address in Paris".

Wow, immediately you are in a foreign country, set in a long ago time, with curving, cobble stoned, narrow walkways, iron monuments and sarcophagus, and multitudes of trees. 

The paths lead up, and around and up again, and the tombs become dense, and denser, as literally you have to crawl behind them to discover the particular person you are searching for. They may either be in a large separate grave, or in a small plot in great disrepair.

I couldn't believe that so many people could be interred here, but apparently the history of the cemetery combines the remains of different families in the same plot. A plot is reopened after a time, and the next family is added. In this way, dozens of individuals are placed in the same tomb.

Wandering the twisting paths, I wondered why some plots were immaculate (like Edith Piaf's grave) and others were a shambles? The practice of Lachaise is that 30 year leases are placed on the grave sites, and if they expire, the remains are moved elsewhere. 

One of the most famous graves to visitors (actually has a guard for much of the time patrolling), is that of Jim Morrison the musician from California who died in Paris in 1971.

Apparently people have spray painted arrows on other plots pointing directions to his grave (it is rather hard to find),  and vandalism has resulted over time, to sites close to his. 

On his birthday parties are held and incense is burned and basically people have wondered if his lease expires, will his remains be removed? The answer is "no", his grave has a perpetual lease...

Some of the famous artists buried here are, Chopin, Balzac, Colette, Delacroix, Moliere, Morrison, Proust, Piaf, G. Stein, Modigliani, Wilde and on and on it goes.

                                    
















Frederick Chopin's grave


Pere Lachaise was opened by 1804, established by Napoleon I. 

Paris, as of 1786 had banned any cemeteries in the environs of the inner city.

The main reason being that the cemetery's close proximity to the Les Halles food market, was presenting an awful stench and health hazard. One offspring of this, was the creation of the catacombs (to place the bones of all the people re-located).

In order to make people aware of this cemetery (as it was quite far from the inner city) the remains of Moliere and La Fontaine were transferred here, and a few years later, Abelard and Heloise also were relocated. This resulted in people "clamouring" to get in (so to speak).

As we leisurely walked around the narrow streets, we met a very interesting man who had a wealth of information, and loved sharing it with us. We were in front of Edith Piaf's tomb, when he started in on the history of his favorite artist Modigliani (who I also admired), and led us over to his site. I was so happy he did, as the graves are extremely interwoven in certain areas, and we never would have found it without his gentlemanly help.

One very popular site in Lachaise, is the plot of Oscar Wilde. Countless visitors leave their mark on his tombstone by kissing it with very red lipstick. The day we were there, my daughter led us to it, as he is one of her favorite writers.

Today it is world famous and a huge attraction to two million people from all over the world who come to search out their favorite artists. You will be astounded by all the other names that are literally around every corner (or in back of the plots all around it)...