When you hear the name Paris, you can’t help but visualise the Eiffel Tower, the Moulin Rouge, and couples walking hand in hand along the Seine. There is however, a hidden treasure on the outskirts that conceals the more sombre and fascinating underbelly of the past of Parisian celebrity and downfall.
Pere Lachaise cemetery contains over 100,000 tombs and sarcophagi that became the highlight of my Paris visit . Entry is free, and it's easy enough to reach, just hop on the Metro to Pere Lachaise and directly opposite you will find a kiosk selling postcards and a map. A map is essential to this labyrinthine wonder. The entrance is across the road, and once in, the bustle of the traffic outside is muffled into a reflective silence. The moss, trees and flora are at their best in autumn when the golden leaves contract with the alabaster white of the ornate tombs. The light is pure and unworldly as you make your way over winding cobbled paths strewn with coppery leaves, its autumn canopy of leaves dappling your way.
There is one notorious stop that everyone makes on this homage, and it’s not far from the entrance. You’ll be able to find it if you follow the trail of tortured looking "emos". It is the tomb of Jim Morrison, tragic poet, anti-hero and front man of the Doors. He died of a suspected drug and alcohol overdose in Paris in 1971, aged 27. He is buried here with his name James Douglas Morrison, and his dates. Due to the mass of pilgrims, his remains the only tomb with its own security rails, due to the unquenchable cult of interest in him. Now the grafitti has been cleaned off, but poems and messages are thrown onto his grave still. As I watched, a young man threw a folded message onto the grave, never to be read. He bowed his head and was by no mean alone in his actions. For many it is the only stop they will make at Pere Lachaise, although to do so would be to miss out on so much.I had kept my list of pilgrimages short by necessity, I wanted to pay my respects to Edith Piaf, Oscar Wilde and, if I could find her, Maria Callas.
I found Edith’s tomb without too much trouble. As you would expect from a national heroine, the Little Sparrow’s grave is blooming and colourful, and tea lights mark a sombre and affectionate vigil. One of them had spluttered out, and I decided I wanted relight it for her in return for the many hours of wonderful entertainment she had given me.
Oscar Wilde’s tomb is breathtaking, certainly one of the more magnificent and unusual monuments in this peculiar supermarket of the dead. His tomb is at least fifteen foot tall and made of a pure cool grey granite. Designed by Jacob Epstein and financed by an anonymous, but wealthy benefactress, it depicts a naked man in flight above Oscar’s names and dates. Behind the tomb is a sad poem of mourning in English
“Tears of pity will fill a vase…
For outcasts are always in mourning”
I couldn't help noticing that a certain part of the anatomy of the naked man was missing, leaving a granite stump. It transpires that a “puritanical, aristocratic Englishwomen” (the words of a local) had been so offended by the “monstrosity” that they had chipped it off in disgust. I wondered what Oscar Wilde would have made of it all, and left my own lip print on his tomb . I asked a wandering local where I could find Maria Callas and he took me to her, running and shouting “Maria Callas! Over here! Barbecue!” and off he led me to the crematorium....
