Cimetière du Père-Lachaise

 Père-Lachaise is the largest cemetery in Paris, and we found that out for ourselves today when we decided to wander around without a map or guidebook of any kind.  I think they hand out or sell paper maps by one of the entrances, but we didn't see anyone doing so when we walked in.

There is a sign with a map by the entrance.  It looks like this:

But there was a huge crowd elbowing in to view it, so we decided to just take our chances and start walking around.  We knew that other cemeteries (Montparnasse, Montmartre) have duplicate signs posted throughout, so we assumed we would eventually run into one.  (I think you can see where this is going...)  Of course we didn't see any more signage, so for the first hour we just wandered the aisles checking the names on the most ornate tombs to see if they were anyone we'd heard of. 

Bronze statues topping the tombs of Charles Floquet and Anatole de la Forge

Pretty mosaic tiles on a more recent grave

There was a moving quotation on the back of one gravestone.  Roughly translated, it reads "There is something stronger than death, it is the presence of the absent ones in the memory of the living."

The roof of this ornate tomb was planted with irises.

We passed the columbarium, which is where cremated remains are stored.

In Parisian cemeteries, plots can be purchased in perpetuity or leased for a duration of 50, 30, or 10 years.  Here, a marker has its perpetual contract number etched in the back of the stone so that there is no confusion.

The enormous mausoleum tomb of French statesman Casimir Pierre Perier.

The grave of Gilbert Morard has been covered in Metro tickets.  His tomb notes that he was a senior official with the SNCF (the French National Railway Corporation).  I may be wrong, but I think RATP (a different company) handles the Metro...the SNCF tickets we've used are large, like airline boarding passes.  There are a few of them on the grave, but mostly it looks like Metro tickets.

Around this time we realized just how large Père-Lachaise is, and we came to the conclusion that we would never find any famous graves on our own.  So we got the idea to scout out other people (who all seemed to have maps) and see if they looked like they were heading for something important.  Our first attempt was a success, and we "found" Jim Morrison.

Over the years his grave (and the graves of the unsuspecting souls nearby) have been severely vandalized.  A bust of Morrison was stolen off the tombstone in 1988, and now there is a gate (like the ones they use at rock concerts) shielding the grave from the overzealous fans.  Sadly, nothing is protecting the trees nearby.

So, using our sleuth skills we followed a Russian-speaking group past the tomb of Sarah Bernhardt and over to the grave of Oscar Wilde.  It is covered with lipstick kisses and messages in various languages and topped with a very modern-looking winged angel.

We overheard an Italian family repeating the word "Piaf" and followed them to her grave, which would have been hard to find without help since it was not on one of the aisles.  Her given name is Édith Gassion; "Piaf" was a moniker given to her due to her diminutive size.  It means "sparrow".

As we wandered down another path we saw an American couple taking photos of one of the graves.  Closer inspection showed it to be that of French playwright Molière. 

It had been a few hours of walking so we started looking around for people who looked tired and ready to leave, so they could lead us to the exit.

As we approached the gate, we finally saw another map.  And of course by the entrance was a guy handing out free paper maps (he must've been on his lunch break when we arrived!)  Oh well, turns out we didn't need one anyway.