Pere Lachaise Cemetery

Opened in 1804 on a hillside then well outside the city, Pere Lachaise sold badly because Parisians thought it too far and unconsecrated, so in 1817 the administration transferred in the supposed remains of Abelard and Heloise and of Moliere and La Fontaine, and plot sales rose sharply. It now covers forty-four hectares of cobbled avenues under old chestnuts with around seventy thousand graves, among them Chopin, Wilde, Proust, Piaf, Delacroix, Modigliani and Jim Morrison, whose grave draws the largest and least reverent crowds. The Mur des Federes on the eastern wall marks where Commune fighters were shot in 1871.

What you actually see

• The famous graves - Chopin, Wilde, Proust, Piaf, Morrison and many more.
• Wilde's tomb - the Epstein sphinx, now glazed against lipstick kisses.
• The cobbled avenues - a hillside laid out as a landscape garden.
• The Mur des Federes - the wall where Commune fighters were executed in 1871.

When to go

April to October for the trees and light; autumn leaves suit the place. Free maps are available at the entrance, and finding specific graves without one is genuinely difficult.

Honest expectations

The site is large, hilly and cobbled, hard on the feet and on wheels. Graves are poorly signposted and a map is essential. Morrison's grave is fenced and often crowded.

Nearby

Belleville lies northwest; Bastille is southwest.