23 novembre 2012
did this walk with cori, olivia, mallory, carine, and caitie.
i think this was both the coolest and most confusing walk that i have been on. for sure père-lachaise is a place that people should visit. it's beautiful and gray and kind of sad. but it's also so confusing. i can't even begin to tell you how turned around we got on those little streets (yes, this cemetery has streets). they're not very well labeled.
we saw soooo many graves of famous people. i can't even begin to remember all of them (thank goodness i have a list). i'm only going to talk about the ones that were the most impressionable for me!
georges seurat
ok so who doesn't love seurat? mr pointilism himself is buried in paris. his grave was awesome - it was the chapel kind, with a small stained glass window and name plates for all of his deceased family members. it was super cool because just the night before we were in the orsay looking at his pieces! crazy. i love how everything i do in paris is so connected.
georges-eugène haussmann
remember my grand bouelvards walk? and i talked about haussman who basically leveled paris and rebuilt it all for napoleon iii? yep. saw his grave. that was pretty fun.
so for this next grave to be fully appreciated, i have to back up. when we first entered père-lachaise, two guys walked up to us. they had kinda ratted hair, some grungy clothes. they looked like the nomad type, if you know what i mean. one of the two said to me, "hey, do you know where jimbo's grave is?" so i showed him on my map. he said they were from new jersey. i said i was from san francisco. he said, "oh yeah? what part of frisco? i've done the bumming around cali thing." it didn't surprise me. he then proceeded to ask, "isn't there someone else here who is pretty wild?" so i responded, "you mean oscar wilde?" (i found that ironic because i honestly don't think he meant to do that. at all.) anyway. back to jimbo.
jim morrison
jim morrison was a member of the doors, as we all know. for some reason, i was expecting his grave to be a whole lot more exciting than it was. the best part of it all, though, was the lovely harmonica version of light my fire. i was trying to figure out who it was, and surprise! it was my friends who had asked for directions. they had jumped the little fence around jimbo's grave and were playing the song in his memory. a small rock pilgrimage. honestly, it was the best thing i've ever seen.
a few days later, i saw harmonica boy in the marais. now you tell me, what are the chances of that actually happening? because i honestly have no idea what they would be. next to impossible, i'm assuming.
frederic chopin
this man was polish - born in warsaw - and lived in paris. he is one of the world's most well known composers. it was cool for me because i have now seen his two resting places - here at père-lachaise, and the church where his heart is buried in warsaw.
thédore géricault
this was kind of an epic grave. géricault is depicted as lounging across his grave, full sized, with his palette in his hand. there is also a low-relief of his piece raft of the medusa on his grave.
oscar wilde
one of my all time favorite quotes is by this guy. how can you not love a man who once said, "with freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy?" he also wrote pieces like the picture of dorian gray and the importance of being earnest (a personal fave). anyway. the tradition of this grave is to kiss it with freshly applied lipstick. but now there is a plexiglass guard around the whole thing so people can't actually kiss the grave itself.
holocaust memorials
these mean so much more to me, now that i have been to places like auschwitz and birkenau. i feel like i can more fully appreciate these memorials, now that i have a greater understanding of the pain and suffering that those who were murdered felt.
so anyone visiting paris...go to père-lachaise. it's like a fantasy land for ghosts. if i could put photos up on my blog, it would blow you all away (all 4 of you who read this, that is! :) ).
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