Day 3--Cimetiere du Pere Lachaise

We slept as long as we could before going out on our first full day in Paris. By 10:00am we were leaving the hotel and making our way to our first destination, Cimetiere du Pere Lachaise, Paris's oldest and one of the world's largest and most famous cemetaries. I love observing tombstones and was eager to go, but I really didn't know what to expect. It was truly an amazing sight!

The cemetary is 105 acres with thousands upon thousands of fancy tombs, many like the one pictured above, which to me looks like a small church. Cobblestone streets twist their way around the inside and are lined with trees. Even though it was right in the heart of the city, it was quite peaceful and quiet.

Admission to the cemetary was free, and there were posted maps near the entrances, but after walking around for a few minutes were knew we'd never find our way around without a map to carry. We retraced our steps to the entrance (one of four) and purchased a detailed map that a guy was selling on the street outside. We had originally thought it to be a tourist trap, and maybe it was, but the map proved to be extremely valuable and worth the small amount paid for it.

Here is a nice photo of me that my friend took while we were walking around.

What was the most fascinating to me was the extraordinary number of wonderful statues scattered literally everywhere. I took an entire roll of film, and then some, in the cemetary alone, the largest number of photos I took in any one single place during my entire trip in Paris. Here you can see a sitting girl on top of a tomb, I thought she had a pretty face. The cemetary is very old, but there were still many very recent tombs intermixed within the extremely old ones, but the only way to be buried there was to be either very rich, very famous, or both.

The first famous tomb we visited was Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors. His tomb, seen in the above photo, was gated off and had apparently been desecrated more then once by crazed fans. People still come and leave flowers, as you can see.

As we wandered around the cemetary, getting our shoes dirty, getting rained on, and not caring one bit, we found another interesting statue. Here you can see a man lying on a tomb holding a face.

Next we visited the tomb of Chopin, the famous paino composer. I loved the cherubic little girl on the top of his tomb, plus there were candles burning here and more flowers.

This tomb must have been for an artist, although I did not recognize the name. Still, I really like the statue on his tomb.

Here, a woman is holding a rose up near a picture of the woman's face who is buried there. I found this very endearing.

My friend took this picture of me next to the tomb of Sarah Bernhardt, a famous French actress. Her tomb also had candles burning and a few flowers.

Near the Sarah Bernhardt tomb was this tomb, which I liked because of bears the name of "Lupin" which is the a name used in Harry Potter and happens to belong to one of my favorite characters, so I snapped this picture. We also spotted another tomb for the family "Munster" and also "Bastard David", which sent me into a fit of giggles. I know it's not very mature, but I couldn't help but find it funny.

I was very interested in this tomb, I couldn't tell if it had been made to look broken on purpose or if it had actually been broken. I guess there is no way of really knowing, but I liked the design.

Here you can see the tomb of Oscar Wilde, a famous playwright, or part of the tomb anyway. Near his inscribed name, you can see where numerous people have left their mark, literally, on his grave in the form of kiss marks. These kisses absolutely covered the front of the grave which I found amusing. His tomb was huge and had a most original design. There was a large angelic man on the top with a face that looks almost ancient Egyptian. His genitals had been broken off, but I had heard that when they were intact they were fairly grotesque. I know you were dying to know that.

Here is one with a boy and dog perched on top, I thought it was cute. We ended up spending several hours in the cemetary, and I could have stayed there all day and come back again. As it was, we didn't even see the larger part of the cemetary, but was a really interesting place to visit. We had other things to see though, so it was time to move on.

This is a surprise shot my friend snapped while I was loading a new roll of film into my camera. I took more pictures in this location than I did anywhere else in Paris!