When in Paris ...

In which I visit Paris - and still end up in a bookstore and a graveyard... 

I try not to talk about personal stuff on social media, so let's just say 2016 was not a great year for us and leave it at that. By the time it got to December, my husband and I decided we needed a holiday! Holiday destinations in December are pretty limited, but then we had the great idea to combine a visit to Disneyland Paris, where we'd taken the kids when they were (much!) younger, with a trip to the city of Paris.

My daughter and me - halfway up the Eiffel Tower!

We held a family conference about the 'must see' places to visit. We all voted for the Eiffel Tower. I wanted to go to the Louvre. I was not so bothered about the inside, I just wanted to see the glass pyramid that always features in all the movies. Or as my husband put it, 'You want to visit the Louvre because you once saw it in a Tom Hanks film?' My other vote was for Shakespeare and Company, a very famous bookshop close to Notre-Dame. Fortunately, because it was close to Notre-Dame, and my daughter also cast her vote for it, it was added to the list. My daughter also had a hankering to visit the Catacombs - basically one giant, underground ossuary, but none of us quite fancied being so close to real, er, 'live' bones, so we compromised by visiting Pere Lachaise Cemetery.

The Eiffel Tower was built by Gustave Eiffel in 1889 as part of the Exposition Universelle, to celebrate 100 years of the Revolution. You can buy tickets in advance, online, or just queue up on the day, which is what we did. It was the middle of December and we only waited in line for about 20 minutes. There is also a very good app for smart phones, which acts like a guidebook with lots of facts. We bought tickets for the 1st and 2nd floor, which was cheaper than going right to the top and quite high enough for us! And we took the glass elevator rather than the stairs - there is one in each pillar. Even though it was a misty day, there were great views of Paris. Definitely recommended!

You don't need me to tell you
what this is, do you?

I'd first visited Paris on a school trip, so one of the places I wanted to see again was Notre-Dame. We didn't go inside, just admired it from the outside - it's pretty impressive, as you can see! It's a gothic cathedral dating back to the 12th century, and was one of the first buildings to use flying buttresses (arched exterior supports) after cracks appeared in the walls.

Notre-Dame, cunningly angled to cut
the tourists' heads off

Shakespeare and Company is a quirky bookshop I'd first come across on Pinterest. It's an English language bookstore on the banks of the River Seine, just around the corner from Notre-Dame. Built in the early 1600s, the building was originally a monastery but opened as a bookstore in 1951 by an American, George Whitman. In 1964, the name was changed to Shakespeare and Company on the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare's birth, and also in honour of another bookseller George admired,  Sylvia Beach, who had opened the first Shakespeare and Company in 1919.

Me!
(And my husband, wondering why I'm blocking the door)

I could have spent all day in that bookshop! There are several little rooms, all leading off each other, overflowing bookshelves from floor to ceiling, exposed brickwork and wooden beams, and signs saying things like 'You can find Agatha Christie under the stairs'. But you'll have to take my word for that because, understandably, they don't allow photos of the interior and my memory's not great! I bought my son a copy of The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu and my daughter a copy of In Search of Lost Time (vol 6) by Marcel Proust, because she's mad on him (more of that later!). Each book was stamped with the bookshop logo and came with a bookmark. What did I buy for me? I managed to restrain myself and settled for one of their tote bags (although I don't think George would have been impressed!).

Shopping!

We had lunch and then headed to Pere Lachaise Cemetery, where my daughter was keen to visit Marcel Proust's grave. The cemetery is absolutely huge, like a mini village, complete with little cobbled streets lined with trees. It is essential to have a map, which can be bought at one of the gates or surrounding kiosks. Unfortunately, when we arrived there were none available, probably because it was the middle of December! We got around this by using a smartphone to photograph one of the large maps by the entrance, along with a key to all the 'famous' graves. If you do this, make sure your photograph is not blurred before you set off or you will get lost!

Marcel Proust's grave

The cemetery is named after Pere Francois de la Chaise (1624-1709) (the confessor to King Louis XIV), who lived in a house on the site. The property was bought by the city in 1804 and the grounds turned into a cemetery. Napoleon, who had been declared Emperor three days previously, declared that 'Every citizen has the right to be buried regardless of race or religion'. Unfortunately, because the cemetery was situated so far from the city and had not been blessed by the church, it attracted few funerals. To encourage the purchase of burial plots, the administrators arranged for the remains of Jean de La Fontaine and Moliere to be re-interred here; suddenly everyone wanted to be buried alongside the rich and famous. Today there are over 1 million bodies buried, as well as very moving memorials to the victims of the Holocaust and both world wars.

One of the 'streets' at
the Pere Lachaise Cemetery

But the cemetery is mostly famous for being 'home' to celebrities, including Honore de Balzac, Sarah Bernhardt, Georges Bizet, Frederic Chopin, Colette, Isadora Duncan, Marcel Marceau, Yves Montand, Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, Camille Pissarro, Marcel Proust, Simone Signoret, Gertrude Stein and Oscar Wilde. It is sweet to see the fresh flowers and little notes that their fans have left at some of the graves. Not so sweet to see how some of the graves have been scrawled over with lipstick and felt tip pen. Oscar Wilde's grave has now been encased in glass - so his 'fans' write on that instead. Jim Morrison's grave has been so vandalised over the years, apparently it now has its own guard.

Oscar Wilde's grave

Most of the tombs are built like mini-mausoleums, with a door at the front, although the bodies (usually more than one) are buried beneath the ground. The idea is the mourner would go inside to pray and leave flowers on one of the shelves inside. The cemetery is definitely worth a visit, not just to see the famous graves. But if you do go, allow a good couple of hours and make sure you have a map!

Time to go home ...

Links:

The Eiffel Tower (official website)
Notre-Dame (official website)

Shakespeare and Company (bookshop) (official website)

Related Posts:

A Writer's Holiday (in which I visit Italy)
A Grave Obsession (why I love churchyards)
More Ramblings About Tombs (in which I visit an ancient Welsh burial chamber)


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