Visiting the dead

We never do guided tours except when we need transport to a difficult place e.g. from Montpellier we did a van trip to villages, hiking locations, a famous abbey etc none of which we could have managed on public transport and we did a tour for the WWII Normandy sites. But if there is one place in Paris where having a guide might be worth it, it is Pere Lachaise which is very hard to navigate even with a map. A map is essential and they are available at the lower entry but we have not found them available at the preferably uphill entry. FWIW. google maps will also help you find particular grave sites. But a knowledgeable guide who can get you to the tombs you have the greatest interest in, is not a terrible idea.

I remember when I went to pere lachaise, we just walked in and wandered around until we found Jim Morrisons's grave. People were around it singing and having a jolly time. I would recommend a private guide if you are pressed for time and really are looking for specific sites.

I love visiting cemeteries, and try to get to at least one or more every place I visit. Every country has different customs, and it's always fascinating to see how the dead are buried in each location. I still remember when I went to Germany and thought I would look for my ancestors' graves. I found out, though, that Germany destroys most tombstones after 50+ years and uses them to pave the roads. So looking for anyone older than that is probably fruitless.

It's still fun to visit. I love how the graves in Italy have photos on them of the person who died. And I always pay a visit to the cemeteries in New Orleans. In Florence, there is a beautiful cemetery behind San Miniato Church that almost looks like a small city. Romania has the Merry Cemetery where all the graves have beautiful hand-painted crosses, each depicting a picture of the deceased with some characteristic, and a small story or poem about their life and death. In Okinawa, families take picnics to the cemeteries on certain days and sit there around the grave and eat together.

My most treasured find was when I was walking through a small cemetery in Cooperstown, New York. I was working for Glimmerglass Opera that summer and visited the town one day. At one spot, I came upon the grave of James Fenimore Cooper. It never occurred to me that Cooperstown had been named for his family and that he was buried there. I found the other members of his family as well.

I love exploring cemeteries too, Mardee. Just in case anyone is interested, here's the map of Pere Lachaise that we used. It includes locations of notable people.

https://www.api-site.paris.fr/paris/public/2018%2F9%2FCPLMapEN.pdf

Editing to add: not on the list included in the link but was a mission of ours to find was Stéphane Grappelli: Division 87 (columbarium), urn 417. Marcel Marceau is also not on the list but can be found in Division 21.

Kate, I will definitely take that map with me if I head back to Paris—thanks!. The last time I was there at the cemetery was in 1999 and I found a few of my favorites but didn’t spend a lot of time there. It would be fun to explore it more especially with information from the Internet at hand.

Thanks for the map Kate! I’ve always wanted to visit Gertrude Stein’s gravestone at this cemetery. I believe Alice Toklas is buried with her in the same plot. Great resource for my next visit there.

I had some success using Google maps within Pere Lachaise last week.

You're welcome, Mardee and mggtravel! It's always fun to be able to give back a little something useful for all the great advice I'm able to glean from the RS tribe!

We found Cimetière de Montmartre to be a very interesting ramble too, and it also has a useful online map, if interested?

https://cdn.paris.fr/paris/2022/06/15/3e34e54fe886e92f7da4dbb710a7c527.pdf

Here you'll find Edgar Degas, Hector Berlioz, Pierre Cardin, Léon Foucault (of the pendulum), Vaslav Nijinsky, Adolphe Sax (of the horn), François Truffaut & others.

A macabre bit of cemetery trivia is the tomb of Charles-Henri Sanson, who was the royal executioner during the reign of King Louis XVI, and High Executioner of the First French Republic. He was 4th in a line of family executioners, was first to use the guillotine, and performed nearly 3,000 executions, including the beheading of the king himself. His son, Henri, next in line of hereditary unpleasantness, was the executioner of Queen Marie-Antoinette and is also buried in Montemartre. Sadly, this former quarry also served as a mass grave for thousands executed/murdered during the Revolution/Reign of Terror, a great number of them by the Sansons.

Thanks, Kate! Very interesting. I'll put it on my list.

I had some success using Google maps within Pere Lachaise last week.

Ha ha, I forgot about using Google Maps in cemeteries! I used Google Maps to find some of the graves at Greyfriar Cemetery in Edinburgh, including the grave of Thomas Riddle (originally Riddell) of Harry Potter fame.

Seriously, we couldn't find Jacques Louis David's via the PDF map and went round and round and finally I put him in Google maps and we found his grave.

And just to stick up for our mentor, Rick's guide has a good and complete map with commentary. I used it quite successfully, even though it was raining and I was balancing many items.