My attempt to visit Musée de L’Orangerie today was thwarted again! It’s closed on a Tuesday. So instead I made my way to Cyber cube to print out some vouchers. I then made my way to ‘La Bon Marche’. I was specifically looking for some cute little Anna Winship shoes I’d seen previously in another store, but not available in my size, but I still couldn’t find them. But I did find some Pedro Garcia shoes which I’m developing a bit of a passion for. So I bought them!!
Then I made my way to a smaller Galleries Lafayette on the left bank still with the hope that I could find the Anna Winship shoes – but alas it was not to be, but I did of course find a very cute pair to pink T-bar shoes which I also had to have! Eek!! I had to get out of there and get away from the shops – I was out of control!!
So I came home for a read and a rest. I realised today how exhausting jumping on and off trains is and making your way through the myriad of metro tunnels.
After a brief rest I ventured out again in the rain to take he metro to Belleville in the 20th Arrondissement. Here I met my guide Carly who was about to take me on my own personal tour of Cimetiére du Pére LaChaise, the larges of the three Parisian Cemeteries. I was the only one booked on the tour today – Great!
It was lightly raining – which seemed quite fitting for a tour of a cemetery. There are 300K people buried and 500K cremated remains there. Coincidently anyone can be buried there regardless of where you live or come from!!
Pére LaChaise was built in 1804 to solve an overflow problem in the city, however due to the seedy nature of the suburb it was built in, no one wanted to be buried there and after a year since opening – there were only eight people buried there. So in order to increase the popularity of the cemetery Playwrights Moliére and La Fontaine were relocated to Pére LaChaise which evidently did the job!
The cemetery is now also the resting place for composer Chopin, writers Balzac, Proust and Gertrude Stein, Painter Delacroix and the ‘Chanteuse’ singer Edith Piaf. The commonly visited graves include Oscar Wilde, whose tomb is covered in lipstick kisses and Jim Morrison, whose grave had to have a bodyguard posted there to stop people taking drugs and having sex on his grave!
In this cemetery there are also lots of memorials to Concentration Camp victims and War Dead. In addition, there is a story of 27 May 1871 where the last of the Communard Insurgents, cornered by government forces, fought a hopeless, all-night battle among the tombstones. In the morning, the 147 survivors were lined up against the ‘Mur des Fédérés’ (Wall of the Federalists), shot and buried where they fell in a mass grave. While I write this Asha is reading about La Concierge where in 1789 approximately 38 people were guillotined a day. It makes you realise what a horrific time it was to live in France hundreds of years ago and how fortunate we are to have the justice system that we have today. Back then you really didn’t have to do too much wrong to warrant torture or getting the chop!
It’s the evening and it’s only 6 deg outside following a 10 deg day which is evidently unusually cold for May in Paris. But regardless, that’s not going to stop me going out for a Nutella Crepe and a bottle of Champagne!
(the top photo is the grave of a 9 year old girl - very sad!)
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