Paris Cemetery: Popular for Visiting Famous Dead Print


If you happen to be in Paris, consider taking a day to visit one of the most visited places in the city. Père Lachaise is known as the largest and most popular cemeteries in the world. Buried under all the crowded headstones, monuments and plaques are 70,000 people. Most are unknown, but some of the famous attract thousands of tourists each year.

The most visited grave is that of rock star Jim Morrison, who died in 1971. The modest site is usually filled with flowers and mementos from those former hippies and other admirers, now older and greyer, who come to pay homage to their idol.

Also there are France’s greatest generals, politicians and diplomats, as well as Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, Chopin, Edith Piaf, Balzac, Moliere and famed lovers Abelard and Heloise. Rebel students from street battle were executed there, as in Broadway play, “Les Miserables” Their common grave is is near the last resting place of the author, Victor Hugo.

For more information, go to www.reidsguides.com/destinations/.../paris/.../pere_lachaise....