Parisian Necropolis: Pere-Lachaise

Welcome to Pere-Lachaise, the city of the dead. With seventy thousand tombs spread across 188 acres, Pere-Lachaise is the largest cemetery in Paris.



The first famous person we stumbled across was George Seurat, the famous pointillist painter. If you don't know who he is, google his most famous painting Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. I'm sure you'll recognize it.


I really should have more respect...but this was just too good of a photo opportunity to pass up. Shameful.


This tomb belongs to Rossini. He was a famous Opera composer. His body was actually given back to Italy in 1887 so he isn't actually here...but I thought his tomb was rather pretty.


This rather relaxed looking man is Louis Visconti. Visconti was the architect for both the expanded Louvre and Napoleon's tomb.



Here lies Baron Haussmann, the man given unprecedented power under Napoleon III to reshape the look of Paris. Thank you monsieur, you did a fine job.


This...interesting?...monument was sculpted by a man named Bartholome. He began working on it after his wife died in 1888. It took him ten years. It supposidly portrays a hopeful view of death as men, women, and children are awaiting their turn to pass through to the other side. I thought it was a little unsettling personally, but it had to be documented for you to see.


This giant tree is a Lebanese Cedar that was planted in 1870. A living link to the past.


Going up the stairs to the right of Bartholome's monument to the dead.


There were random cats walking around the cemetery. This one followed us for a bit. I thought he was cute.



This is the grave of Heloise and Abelard, legendary lovers of the twelfth century. They were sadly forced apart by unfortunate circumstancse of the law and lived separate lives. When death took them both in the same year, pity was finally shown and they were allowed to be burried side by side.



Robertson was an 18th century physics demonstrator who specialized in...creepy magic shows. He is still frightening people today with his somewhat eery tomb.



I was rather amused by this. The grave was dated in the 1300's. It looks like a tree just sprung right out of it!

For all of you rock fans...here lies Jim Morrison. I have no idea why he is burried in Paris...

This impressive display belongs to Casimir Perier, an extremely sly politician who practically lived in the King's pocket. Good way to make sure you have an extravagant burial.

This one was my favorite! Frederic Chopin!

I'm not sure who this grave belongs to, but I thought it was cool.

I was excited to see this one! This is Thedore Gericault. He has some amazing paintings in the Louvre, included the one that is replicated on his tomb Raft of the Medusa.

This was the view of the cemetery from the top of a hill.

Jean de la Fontaine who wrote fables...

And Moliere who wrote plays!

This is a giant crematorium in the middle of the cemetery. Pleasant right? Shudder.


This is Oscar Wilde's tomb. A man who said- "a man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her." I chose NOT to kiss his headstone as so many other women before me had so obviously done.


It was very easy to get lost wandering along these roads. It happened to me on a number of occasions. Good thing I packed a sandwich.


We now come to a very somber part of the cemetery. This is a memorial to an unknown person deported from France who died at the hands of Nazis.


This one is a monument to those who died at the Oranienburg concentration camp.



This one is for those who were in the Buchenwald concentration camp. These monuments were horrible to look at. I suppose that they need to be to invoke the right feelings that should be felt for the people who suffered in these camps. It just makes me sick.

This one is for Auschwitz.

and Dachau...

This is in memory of the Holocaust. It shows the many footprints that lead to a vanishing point...



This wall honors the victims of the Commune, a shameful event in French history. In one week, parts of Paris was in ruins and twenty thousand rebels were killed. It was here at this wall that the last of the rebels were gunned down.



This was a somber walk, but it really was an interesting experience to wander through all of these thousands of tombs and think about the lives that were lived and lost. It definitely puts a new perspective on life.