Return to Pere LaChaise.

Tuesday, October 16. It's a beautiful warm sunny day, a perfect day for biking and walking around Paris! So I grab a bike and head off to Pere Lachaise. En route, I get a phone call from friend Janet from Philadelphia. She's coming to Paris on Thursday with one of her friends, Debbie, who's never been to Paris before. Janet and I chat for a few minutes while I'm waiting at a red light!


Park the bike on r. de la Rocquette and walk back down to the Square de la Rocquette. Outside the park is a giant wooden bird house for pigeons, or un pigeonnier. It has been installed by the Paris "Parks Department" in an attempt to control the pigeon nuisance, to keep the area cleaner, and to sterilize eggs (pigeon birth control). Food and water, as well as the gorgeous and capacious bird house, are provided. The system is being monitored to see how well it works. The park itself is a perfect blend of urban/green space, with a basketball court, children's play area, and concrete walkways that cross over and under each other to connect to different parts of the neighborhood. Flowers still blooming away, and huge ornamental grasses with plumes that must be 15-20' high. There's a lovely terraced fountain at the entrace to the park.


Cimitiere du Pere Lachaise. So back to this wonderland of 19th c. funurary art. Observation: In general, the biggest and showiest tombs belong to people you've never heard of, and the tombs of the great are often hard to find. I had to search like mad to find Corot, Honore Daumier and Sarah Bernhardt. Never did find Alphonse Daudet. Did you know that Georges Seurat died at age 31? These are the things you learn hanging about in graveyards!


I think my affinity for cemeteries comes from spending many hours of my childhood playing in Maplewood Cemetery on Lexington Avenue, the oldest cemetery in Charlottesville. Only a few blocks from my home on Locust Avenue, this was an extension of our backyard, a place where we played hide-and-seek, "Army," and the now-politically-incorrect "Cowboys and Indians." My particular favorite as a child was a statue of an angel.

I walked around in the dappled sunlight for two and a half hours. Here is a sampling of the other graves I found using a very inexact and frustrating map:
Artists: Seurat, Delacroix, Caillebotte, Daumier, Pissaro, Corot
Writers: Balzac, Moliere, La Fontaine, Daudet, Musset, Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein
Musicians: Bizet, Chopin
Noted:
-the monument of Oscar Wilde is covered with writings of all sorts despite a small plaque at the bottom that says, futilely, in both French and English, "please do not deface." It was apparently completely restored in 1992 and this sign added at the time, but to no avail.
-Chopin's grave is completely covered with flowers and clearly is one of the most visited. I find it amusing that the stone itself has his name as "Fred-Chopin."
-I run into a French "guide" (official or not?) with a group of English-speaking visitors. The guide is wearing a "Doors" tee-shirt! Incidentally, I do not look for Jim Morrison's grave.
-Gertrude Stein's grave is quite plain, but if you walk around to the back of it, you will see that Alice B. Toklas is buried there as well. If I hadn't thought of looking there, I would have missed it altogether.

There is so much to see here but I have tracked down most everything that is important to me. On my way out, I stop to pay homage to Heloise and Abelard, who may or may not be buried here, despite the elaborate crypt (which today is covered with scaffolding!).

I stop down the hill to have a Salade Vegeterienne at Cafe des Artistes. There are no bikes at the station across from the cafe so I have to walk further down the hill to the next one, and then bike back to r. Beaubourg and home. Apparently, the battery on my pedometer is shot because it registers nothing, not even all zeros! Aaagh.