Today was another sunny and beautiful day in the City of Lights. I decided to venture past our own neighbourhood and start using the Metro so I plotted a little trip to the Le Cimetière du Père-Lachaise (http://www.pere-lachaise.com/). This was another app that I had downloaded on my iPhone - Meet Me at Père Lachaise. So basically I spent the day with a bunch of dead people. A very interesting place though. Beautiful is some respects - some amazing and elaborate grave sites. Sad in other respects - some neglected and deteriorating sites.
I found it interesting reading about what the French view as 'in perpetuity'. If you are buried here, you won't be here for eternity...unless you have heirs, descendants, or fans to keep your grave in good repair forever. Plots are purchased for leased periods and even 'in perpetuity' Père Lachaise reserves the right to remove you, cremate your remains, and place your ashes on the Garden of Remembrance. Your broken tomb materials will be safely disposed of to ensure new plots for more people to be buried.
On this little personal 'iphone' tour I visited M. Rossini (composer of operas like The Barber of Seville), M. Haussmann (commissioned by Napoleon III to make sweeping planning reforms to Paris), M Chopin (composer of some of my favourite waltzes), M Marcel Marceau (the famous mime Bib the clown), Mme Edith Piaf (ah! La Vie en Rose), Mme Gertrude Stein & Mme Alice B. Toklas (Gertrude is known for helping her talented friends find fame :Picasso, Matisse and Hemingway), M Oscar Wilde (flamboyant and irreverent writer. One of my favourite quotes: 'forgive your enemies, nothing annoys them so much'), Mme Maria Callas (THE operatic diva), and last but certtainly not least M James Douglas Morrison (The Doors lead singer 'Jim').
Jim Morrison's grave site was 'sad' in comparison to the other more grand sites. I had a bit of trouble finding it so decided to follow some young visitors carrying flowers. Voila! Seems the Doors live on with a younger generation. Apparently his original grave had no official marker until French officials placed a shield over it - which was stolen in 1973. In 1981, a Croatian sculptor replaced it with a bust of Jim and a headstone. The bust was stolen in 1988. In the 1990's his father added a flat stone with the Greek inscription: 'true to his own spirit'.
