Monday, October 26, 2009

Pere Lachaise Cemetery/London Calling


Yesterday was a beautiful day in Paris. So was today for that matter. 60 degrees and sunny--perfect fall weather. I needed to get out of my apartment and since it was so nice out I decided to seize the opportunity to visit the Pere Lachaise Cemetery.

Visiting a cemetery doesn't sound like a barrel of laughs. The cemeteries of Paris, however, are so full of history and important people, as well as beautiful sculptures and family graves, that most of them are worth a visit. Last time I was in Paris, I visited the Montparnasse cemetery which too was very beautiful.

Pere Lachaise holds about 300,000 people with about 200 famous ones. I entered at the up-hill entrance so that I could walk through going down most of the time. This brought me in near Oscar Wilde's grave. I didn't have a map so I was only referencing the large one that they put near the entrance.

I ended up doing a little wandering before finding it.

I saw some beautiful fall flowers:
Maybe because it's close to Halloween, but the place seemed kind of spooky. Not in a scary way, but there were ravens and cats wandering around, and things were so mismatched and overgrown.

There were a lot of plaques on graves. This one was very pretty with dried flowers in resin. It reads "Remembrances to our friend".
I came upon the grave of a famous frenchman. I don't exactly know why he's famous though...
Many family's have places where living family members can go pray (on top of the family's tomb). These little houses have some very pretty stained glass and iron work.

Some people seem to take it over the top, though.

I found Oscar Wilde's grave by following the crowd. The sculpture "Flying Kiss" is placed on it. It is traditional to wear lipstick and kiss the grave leaving an imprint. I didn't do this.


After I saw Oscar Wilde, I was far away from a map and didn't know where to find any other famous graves. I decided to just throw caution to the wind and wander. I am glad I did. It was my favorite part of the day.



I found the grave of Sarah Bernhardt, a famous French actress:


There is a huge history of freemasonry in France, so there were a lot of random colomns and pyramids.
I heard scraping and noticed that someone was working on an open grave. Creepy!

I found a Bastian family tomb. That is my grandma's maiden name! I wonder if it's a relation...? I will look at my family tree when I get back to the states.


This was the grave of a painter who had a good sense of humor. It says: "Finally alone!"
Right next to it was the grave of Chopin, the famous composer.
I really liked this headstone--it was a giant book! It was supposed to be the life story of the man buried there.

Looking up the hill was neat.

I eventually found the visitor's center where I got a map. I sat down to rest and found the famous graves that I definitely wanted to see.

There were the famous lovers:

The Opera composer Rossini:

Georges Seurat who painted the famous pointualism painting:
Jacques Louis David, another famous painter:
As I was looking for Balzac, this cat ran by. It was adorable.

Still looking for Balzac, I got distracted by this huge freemason gravestone.

Finally, there was Balzac, a famous French author:

Then there was Marcel Proust, a famous essayist and author:

This was the on-site chapel. It was impressive.
This complex is known as the crematorium and it is where cremated remains are placed:

This was a sad grave. I noticed it because the sculpture was of a small boy and his dog. It turns out that it is the grave of a 7 year old boy who died in 1911.

I found Edith Piaf, the famous French singer of "La vie en rose":


One of the most famous graves in the place doesn't belong to a frenchman, but to Jim Morrison the lead singer of the Doors. They have to barricade his grave because it and the graves around it have fallen victim to vandalism.



At this point, I had been wandering for 5 hours and my feet hurt! I made my way to the metro and got home to sit in my bed for the rest of the day.

Today was spent packing for my trip to London tomorrow! I wake up bright and early at 5am for my 8:55am flight. I will arrive in London at 9:15 and meet up with Alex there. Then, we have a bus ride to the city. We are staying near Paddington station.

My hotel does not have free wireless, so I probably won't be updating for the next few days, but prepare yourself for my future never-ending babbeling on Harry Potter, the Beatles, "'ello govena'!", etc. etc.

Cheers!

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