Spent three hours walking (slowly...sore knees and uphill) around Pere Lachaise cemetery hunting for certain graves we wanted to see and stopping to read many others. We missed Haussmann's, darn. And we were too tired to hike to Moliere, Sarah Bernhardt, Balzac, Marcel Marceau, Yves Montand and Simone Signoret, Francois Truffaut, Charlie Chaplin, Seurat, Gertrude Stein and a few others, to my great regret. It was, though, the most beautiful 70-something sunny afternoon for it and no crowds.
September is certainly a good month for Paris. How nice to finally be able to travel in the off-seasons, versus when I was teaching and relegated to summers, Christmas break and spring break, the most highly traveled times.
(Click photos to enlarge.)
Changing buses at the Bastille. Well, at the monument commemorating the Bastille, which, of course, was burned down during the Revolution.
Lunch before touring the Bastille.
Breaking and entering
Walking uphill on cobblestoned streets for three hours. Whew! (Though right here it is rather flat.)
More walking
Reading the historical fiction, Paris, by E. Rutherfurd, I learned of Abelard and Heloise, French hero and heroine, and I just had to find their grave. Such a sad tale of love denied.
Another view of Abelard and Heloise's tomb.
Chopin
Ceramic flowers put on many graves
Cobblestone marker showing the way to Jim Morrison's grave.
Jim Morrison
And Linda brought a bottle of vodka to leave.
Fence in front of Jim Morrison's grave
(Hear her here)
The spot where the last Communards of 1871 were rounded up and executed. Vive les Communards and all that they stood for. We are still fighting for some of the same things they did.
Close up
Dachau Memorial
Buchenwald memorial
Auschwitz memorial
Linda observing the tradition at Oscar Wilde's tomb
And we still have Napoleon's tomb to visit in Hotel des Invalides, which is a short walk from our apartment. That, at a later date. I love having weeks here to really explore the whole of Paris -- history, art, music, fashion, food, and its way of life -- at a leisurely pace.
And we still have Napoleon's tomb to visit in Hotel des Invalides, which is a short walk from our apartment. That, at a later date. I love having weeks here to really explore the whole of Paris -- history, art, music, fashion, food, and its way of life -- at a leisurely pace.
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