A Day at Père LaChaise, a Lovely Paris Cemetery
Bonsoir,
We had not been to Père LaChaise in many years, and a second visit was our main itinerary today. The weather was breezy, cool, and mostly cloudy so it was an appropriate ambiance for walking quietly through this huge green space. I was very surprised at how few people were visiting, almost no Americans who are easy to spot.
The cemetery is 43 hectares or almost 110 acres. It has 4,134 trees composed of 76 different varieties and 69,000 sculptures. Many famous people are buried here, and we tried to find them all! The walking is treacherous so very sturdy, comfortable shoes are required if you ever decide to go.
Père LaChaise is still a working cemetery with a waiting list. In recent times, they have adopted a standard policy of a 30-year lease, which if not renewed by the family, can result in removal of the bones to make room for additional graves. There are over a million people interred in the cemetery and several million more given the crematorium.
Bernie took over 100 pictures and I certainly can’t share all of those, but I have tried to select the most unusual, the most beautiful, and also the graves of the famous. It is a soothing, iconic outing in Paris, and we hope you enjoy the tour.
Today’s café chairs were found on this outing which resulted in a LONG walk home, given another manifestation at the Bastille. We tried to take the bus, but all the stops close to our apartment were closed so we convinced the bus driver to open the door for us and we jumped off. 14,000 steps today!
A bientôt
L & B
July 5, 2016 @ 7:51 pm
Wonderful 🙂
So many beautiful photos !
July 5, 2016 @ 7:55 pm
Thank you, Ann. I wish I knew the story behind each tombstone. Such an interesting outing.
July 6, 2016 @ 2:46 am
They are all raised like in New Orleans – Some of these stones are just stunning – the one of the angel is an incredible sculpture. And the one of the person holding the face in his hands – what is THAT story? Great photos.
July 6, 2016 @ 5:27 am
I wish I knew the story of the man holding the face in his hands. It was actually my favorite! I’m sure there are books written about the history of these tombstones. I researched that Napoleon started the cemetery, and it was at first not popular until he started adding the grave sites of famous people.
July 6, 2016 @ 4:40 am
Wonderful! I love going here. And you are so right about sturdy shoes!! I feel really sad about the graves that are forgotten and not taken care of. I was especially disappointed that when we were there the oldest graves of Abélard and Héloïse were not very well taken care of. I wonder if they allow volunteers to clean and keep up the grave sites that are not taken care of?
July 6, 2016 @ 5:24 am
I have no idea about the volunteers, but it would be a lovely idea.
July 6, 2016 @ 10:58 pm
Congratulations on the 14000 steps. That is an excellent way of keeping you on the outside looking in whenever you’re in a graveyard. Your son did good when he gave you the step-counter. The monuments are another example of how folks used to take great pains making things as beautiful as they could versus how we don’t seem to as interested in doing that.
July 7, 2016 @ 3:50 pm
You are so correct about the artisanship of the past.
July 8, 2016 @ 3:32 pm
What a fascinating place! The craftsmanship stands out as it does throughout Paris.