Famous Dead People

Today's excursion was to Cimitière Père-Lachaise, an unlikely but durable tourist attraction. We followed Rick Steves's excellent walking tour (props to Jessica for bringing her guidebook so I could leave the iPad in my room) and got to visit the highlights:

Oscar Wilde--now enclosed in a glass box to prevent people kissing the monument

 Gertrude Stein & Alice B. Toklas--I'd forgotten they were buried together until Brian said "Someone else's name is on the back!"

Edith Piaf--my students do not know her music so I told them to check YouTube later today. 

Moliére--the first celebrity to be buried (actually re-buried) here when Père-Lachaise first opened in 1807 and was trying to build a reputation. 

Jim Morrison. 

Frederic Chopin

Héloïse and Abélard

Haussmann family crypt--Georges-Eugène Haussmann is the 19th-century architect who made Paris look like Paris as we know it today.

I did not take any pictures of them but there are several memorials in one section devoted to French deportees to concentration camps. Those are incredibly moving. Our living memory of World War II will not be around very much longer and it makes the "N'Oublions Jamais" on the monuments that much more poignant. We also saw the Mur aux Communards, a memorial to a small group of Parisian socialists who held out against a Prussian invasion in 1870-71 and were buried in a mass grave after making a final stand in Père-Lachaise. None of us had known the story so we all learned something amazing today. 

We got an early start so the cemetery was not at all crowded and it was not too hot. It is hilly & cobblestoned, though, so wear good shoes and eat some breakfast. I had eaten breakfast and was still more than happy to have a tartine and a café crème when we were done. God bless our waitress at Café La Factorie, who managed to keep all our orders straight and generously allowed cappuccinos to be ordered even though they weren't supposed to be on the €6,50 breakfast formule. 

I am off to London in a couple of hours or so. Will report from there if I can, or after I get back Sunday afternoon. À bientôt!