Cimetiére du Pére Lachaise, Paris > Reviews > This Cemetery Is Not Just For The Dead

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Advantages:	It's free, it's educational, and it's a great place to meditate on the meaning of life .
Disadvantages:	There lots of walking

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yes

Full review

Le Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris—Not just a place for the dead!

I have visited Paris four or five times, but each time I go I make it a point to visit Le Pere Lachaise Cemetery. “Travel to Paris to go visit a cemetery”, you ask? Yes, this is one of the most unique and beautiful cemeteries I have ever seen. Unique not only for who is buried there, for there are many famous people entombed there, but for the quiet meditation one has on the meaning of life while one is there.

If man has tried to immortalize himself with monuments throughout history, then Pere Lachaise visually demonstrates that fact. It is a veritable city of the dead, with rows of streets lined with elaborate mausoleum “houses”, each unique with it’s wrought iron door and stained glass windows. To walk the streets of Pere Lachaise is like walking in some abandoned city of the well-to-do and famous. Some of the older tombs are showing signs of age and beginning to fall in on themselves. A stark reminder that nothing lasts forever.

And who might you find buried there? Well, there’s Abelard and Heloise, who’s grave always seems to have a fresh rose on it when I go. There is the Egyptian styled sphinx of Oscar Wilde, covered on the back with graffiti from an admiring public. Did you know that Oscar’s last words, as he lay dying in a Paris slum, were “Either that wallpaper has to go, or I do!”. Edith Piaf, the little sparrow, who’s life had plenty of tragedy but whose songs are still sung. (Milot, La Vie en Rose, etc.) Her gravesite is always covered with fresh flowers. Chopin is there as well as Jim Morrison of “The Doors” fame and Gertrude Stein (“a rose is a rose is a rose”). Other noteworthy residents are Balzac, Bizet, Sarah Bernhardt, Jacques Louis David, Moliere, Poulenc, Proust and a host of others.

It is a beautiful place and it is easily accessed by Metro (Pere Lachaise or Philippe Auguste) There are many lovely gardens and, in the Jewish section, an array of holocaust sculpture that is very worth seeing.

If you go, you are advised to wear comfortable shoes, as you will do a lot of walking. But that’s true of most of Paris. I would also advise you to purchase the guide that is on sale at the gate which goes for less than a dollar. Entrance itself is free to the public.

Le Pere Lachaise has survived a few battles and you can see where shells have left their mark on the surrounding walls, such as the Mur des Federes.

All in all, I would rank this spot up along with Notre Dame, the Louvre, and Montmartre as “must sees” of Paris. Who, but the French, could bury their dead with such panache!