Paris - July 8, 2016

Friday morning, Margo and I went to visit Pere-Lachaise Cemetery, which is very similar to what you might see in a shot of New Orleans – lots of large, above-ground crypts packed closely together, many with very ornate and decorative statuary.  Pere Lachaise is the resting place of many famous French citizens as well as some international celebrities.  We saw the graves of Rossini, Colette, Marcel Proust, Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Edith Piaf, Jim Morrison, and Chopin.  Some graves are visited quite regularly, as evidenced by the tokens left behind.  Proust’s grave was covered with Metro tickets held down with small stones.  Oscar Wilde had red lipstick kisses on one side of it – people would have to stand on top of the adjacent grave to be able to reach over the barrier to kiss it.  Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas were a couple and are buried together – there are stones stacked on top of the headstone and someone used darker colored stones to write G + A in the gravel in front of the headstone, along with 2 interlocked women’s symbols.  Jim Morrison’s grave was blocked off by barricades so you couldn’t get near it but it was covered with flowers nonetheless, and someone had hung multiple colored woven lizards from the barricade, in honor of the Lizard King.

From Pere Lachaise, we walked down Rue de la Roquette until we reached the circle where the Bastille prison used to stand.  It was torn down and destroyed shortly after the French revolution, but a column now stands in the middle of the circle as a monument to all who were imprisoned there.  Then it was on to Gare de Lyon to meet my Dad and stepmom as their train arrived from Basel, Switzerland.  They had been on a Viking river cruise through Germany, originating in Amsterdam, and they were ready for a rest day, much like we had been the day before.  Once we got them settled into the flat, we got caught up on all of out adventures thus far.  Dinner and a walk down to the Eiffel Tower and back along the Seine was about all we could manage that night.  Got to save up some oomph for Notre Dame on Saturday!