Day 17 September 1, 2008
The most famous cemetery in Paris is Pere LaChaise. It's humongous and full of people that I'm supposed to know, but I honestly don't. The ones I did know, they hid from me. Just joking, they can't really hide; they're dead and can't move.
Cylinda and I covered about a quarter of the cemetery this day. We saw Oscar Wilde's tomb which is unmissable because of the crowd around it. I witnessed two women smearing lipstick on and kissing the grave marker which is just gross. But there are kiss marks all over it and quotes from Wilde's writings. He's pretty popular.
Not like, say, Gertrude Stein. If other people were in search of her marker, maybe we would've found it, but on our own, we're hopelesss. I didn't give up, as you'll see in a few days...
Another crowd was around Edith Piaf's grave. I'm not a great big fan of her music, but her life story is incredible and so I got appropriately verklempt, especially at seeing the name of her 2-year-old daughter buried in the same place.
The grounds of Pere LaChaise are quite beautiful and there are tree-lined sidewalks and benches to rest on.
There is also a huge crematorium housing the remains of many who probably couldn't afford a plot. It's open air surrounded by gardens. Not a bad place to rest forever.
We went to Parc Montsouris before the cemetery to fulfill our dream of eating sandwiches and crying over falling in love with Paris. It's really a different park compared to others inside Paris.