Sunday, July 28, 2013

Père Lachaise Cemetery

This place is easily one of my top five favorite places I have been in my life. 
I can't get enough of the quiet reverence and peaceful solitude that is abundant in them, I really can't.  
And this cemetery is the KING OF ALL CEMETERIES!

There is an incredible amount of famous and influential people buried in Pére Lachaise (it's known as the "grandest address in Paris") and I accidentally spent a good few hours one morning researching the people who are buried there (which I enjoyed far more than I should have haha) and then I got ahold of a map of the cemetery and mapped out all the graves I wanted to see (it would be so easy to get lost in there!) 
You can see a full list of everyone buried in the cemetery here!

I apologize for the picture overload, but I couldn't help myself. It was beautiful! And haunting, and soothing, and secluded and one of the best ways (in my opinion) to spend an afternoon!


Artist of my favorite painting, Raft of the Medusa.



Isadora Duncan's urn full of her ashes is placed here!


 Alright, so I suffered a bit of a disappointment at this stop: 
I heard years ago that it is good luck/a rite of passage/etc to kiss Oscar Wilde's grave while wearing lipstick and had decided that I would definitely complete that task sometime in my life.
So when I discovered that Oscar Wilde was buried at Pére Lachaise, I was so excited that I would actually fulfill this goal and even took like 5 whole minutes to decide which color of lipstick I should wear. 

When I finally arrived at his grave, much to my horror and disappointment, the good old historical society of Paris had put up glass walls around Oscar's grave and washed all the lips off :(
Some people still kiss the glass (see below) but I couldn't bring myself to do it! 
Life goal = crushed. 
But I bounced back rather quickly from this set back upon finding Gertrude Stein's grave just down the row!




They say that his grave is the most visited in the entire cemetery!


And last, but not least, Frederick Chopin:

6 comments:

  1. I love that photo of you sitting on the steps. You look beautiful! When I was in Paris I loved visiting this cemetery too. Did you see any of the graves where the top cement part was askew and you could actually look down into the hole? Scary ...

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  2. I've never heard that about Oscar Wilde's grave before, that's pretty interesting. Then it all gets spoiled hey.

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  3. So. Cool. Love this. You are living the life! Love you, Gracie Lou.

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