Paris is the city I think I better know as I have been there for seven summers when I was young (from the age of 12 till 18) living in the house of my uncle and auntie. Then I retuned there, for business or pleasure, at least 300 times. And I still go to Paris 6 times a year, at least.
Despite ... Read review
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Paris is the city I think I better know as I have been there for seven summers when I was young (from the age of 12 till 18) living in the house of my uncle and auntie. Then I retuned there, for business or pleasure, at least 300 times. And I still go to Paris 6 times a year, at least.
Despite of this fact, 10 years ago I got embarrassed when I made a mistake giving a direction.
I was in Paris with my family and the one of my ... ...to visit the grave of Jim Morrison. She told me about a cemetery where many famous personalities have been buried. Without hesitation I took everybody of our group to the cemetery in Montmartre where I have been some years before and where I discovered graves of famous poets and writers.
We arrived there and we started going around, looking for the Jim Morrison grave. We saw hundreds graves but not one was the one we were looking for. An hour ... more
Paris is the city I think I better know as I have been there for seven summers when I was young (from the age of 12 till 18) living in the house of my uncle and auntie. Then I retuned there, for business or pleasure, at least 300 times. And I still go to Paris 6 times a year, at least. Despite of this fact, 10 years ago I got embarrassed when I made a mistake giving a direction.
I was in Paris with my family and the one of my brother in law for sightseeing. My nice expressed the wish to visit the grave of Jim Morrison. She told me about a cemetery where many famous personalities have been buried. Without hesitation I took everybody of our group to the cemetery in Montmartre where I have been some years before and where I discovered graves of famous poets and writers. We arrived there and we started going around, looking for the Jim Morrison grave. We saw hundreds graves but not one was the one we were looking for. An hour later I decided to ask information. I approached one guardian and finally I understood how wrong I was. He told me that in Paris there are more than twenty cemeteries and that we were in the wrong one. The guardian wrote down, on a piece of paper, the right name and direction how to reach it. We took three different lines of the "Metro", then we walked for little more than 10 minutes and we were there, at the main gate of the "Père Lachaise". Pointless say that from that moment and on everything went smooth. We just followed a group of hippies and in 10 minutes we were at Jim Morrison grave.
I think that all of you know who Jim Morrison was; know about the Doors and their songs that have been a milestone of the international music. But today I don't want to write about the singer and its songs. I would like to write about the "Père Lachaise" cemetery, a site full of arts and history.
I think you know that Paris, like Rome, lays over seven hills, and this cemetery is on the hill called Champ Evêque. During the 17th century the Jesuits bought the house of one rich merchant and then they turned it in a convent for their congregation. Father François de La Chaise d'Aix , known as "Le Père La Chaise", was the confessor of the king Louis the 14th . The king visited the convent in 1652 and granted many benefits allowing an huge expansion of the building. But the French Revolution, before, and the Napoleon Empire, later, led the complete destruction of the convent and the linked buildings. The land became property of Municipality of Paris that decided to use the area as new cemetery that officially opened in 1804. The first grave of the new cemetery was belong to an office boy of the nearby police station. As the Paris inhabitants were reluctant to choose this cemetery as their final "house", the Municipality decided to move here the graves of important personalities like the short story write La Fontaine and the comedy writer Molière. Then in 1817 they moved also the famous monument dedicated to the lovers Abelard and Héloise.
Along the east wall we can see the "Mur des Fédérés". Here, on 28 May 1871, 147 Communal were shot by French soldiers after they have been seized the night before during a battle inside the cemetery. The Communal were buried exactly where they fallen hit by the bullets of the firing squad.
As I said before in the "Père Lachaise" cemetery there are the graves of many important and famous personalities, from France as well as from foreign countries. (see a short list at the bottom of this review) The graves could be a simple stone stele or an huge marble monument. But each one gives us an hint of the past time, an hint of a person. This is a site of peace and sadness but also a place of art and history. A visit requires at least half day, but I suggest you to stay as long as possible. Go around, watch the monuments and the statues, read the names and the inscriptions on the tombstones. Learn about a person, simple or famous.
Finally, a destination to include in your visit to Paris.
Guillaume Apollinaire, poet François Arago, physicist and astronomer Honoré de Balzac, writer Paul Barras, politician Beaumarchais (Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais), dramatist Vincenzo Bellini, composer J. Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, writer Sarah Bernhardt, actress Fulgence Bienvenüe, maker of Paris Metro (underground) Georges Bizet, composer Louis Blanc, historian and politician Pierre Brasseur, moving director Jean-François; Champollion, Egyptolist Luigi Cherubini, musician Frédéric Chopin, musician Jean-Baptiste Clément, composer Colette, writer Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, painter Georges Courteline, dramatist Alphonse Daudet, writer Jacques Louis David, painter Pierre David d'Angers, sculptor Eugène Delacroix, painter Pierre Desproges, humorist Juliette Dodu, war hero Yves du Manoir, airman and rugby player Paul Éluard, poet Fabien (le colonel), partisan Louis Gay-Lussac, physicist and chemist Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, naturalist Christian Hahnemann, inventor of homeopathy Georges Haussmann, prefect of Seine district Héloise & Abélard, lovers Dominique Ingres, painter François Christian Kellermann, army general Jean de la Fontaine, short story writer Pierre Lazareff, journalist Ferdinand de Lesseps, diplomatist Georges Méliès, movie director Amedeo Modigliani, painter Molière, dramatist Silvia Monfort, actress Gaspard Monge, mathematician Yves Montand, singer and actor Jim Morrison, singer Joachim Murat, army general Paul Panhard, tycoon Antoine Parmentier, agronomist Édith Piaf, singer Marcel Proust, writer Gioacchino Rossini, musician James de Rothschild, banker L'abbé Sieyès, politician Oscar Wilde, writer
Visit http://www.gargl.net/lachaise/carte/carte.htm to see the map of the cemetery with the location of the graves.
P.S. Just for your information, the today cost for a 2 square meter grave is about £ 3,500, monument not included.
Pere Lachaise Cemetery Paris.
Why would I want to write an article on a cemetery ? Well, the answer is this. In France, cemeteries are a very important part of the life of French people. They are not places where forgotten souls are buried, but in fact celebrated on All Saints Day, as places where people who are remembered and loved and respected are still alive in the hearts of those who visit.
Any cemetery in France is decorated to celebrate ... ...site that greets you.
Pere Lachaise Cemetery is a fine example of how people are awed by the past. This area of Paris was once a poor area until a rich merchant built his house here in 1430, and little did he know at the time, but history has a habit of changing places, and this building was no exception. It became a hospice for Jesuits, and then in 1803 the City of Paris bought the land and the urban planner at that time decided that this would ...
thingywhatsit 05.03.2004 (06.03.2005)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Pere Lachaise Cemetery - Paris
Advantages: Beautiful and Interesting Disadvantages: Lots of walking involved
Unlike the British way, cemeteries in France are places where life is celebrated rather than places of mourning as such. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Père Lachaise cemetery located in the 20th arrondisment, in Paris. This cemetery is thought to be the most visited cemetery in the world and with good reason - it is now the residence of some of the world's most famous politicians, inventors, thinkers and icons. In fact, almost 300,000 bodies ... ...list reads like a 'who's who' of French people and those with links to the city of Paris. It was first established by Napoleon at the start of the 19th Century when cemeteries were banned from the centre of the city due to health and safety hazards. It was originally an unpopular choice compared to its counterparts on the other sides of the city (Montparnasse, Montmatre and Passy) as people considered in to be too far out of the city. In a stroke ...
dkm1981 03.01.2010
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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
Le PereLachaiseCemetery in Paris—Not just a place for the dead!
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bronze grill door. A plethora of remembrance plaques adorn the ornamental black marble façade. Unlike many of the other tombs, the view of the interior is completely obscured, and not wanting to lose her a second time, the government are rumoured to have made the mausoleum able to withstand a nuclear bomb attack.
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I don?t usually visit graveyards for a fun day out, but this was in the nature of a pilgrimage. I?ve always been fond of Edith Piaf?s songs, and after I?d read the biography written by her half sister, Simone, I felt I understood her to some extent. Her early years were deprived and full of abuse, her health was always poor, and you could see why she destroyed herself with booze, drugs and generally hard living, and why she treated the men in her life so badly. In a sense, she was a monster, but one forgives her a lot. I was to be in Paris for a few days, and I decided to visit her grave in PèreLachaisecemetery.
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