Day Three / all over town!

Day Three/all over town!

When I woke up this morning it was drizzly and grey and it seemed like a good day to go visit a cemetery!   I am not a big Jim Morrison/Doors fan, nor a huge Oscar Wilde fan so I never felt a burning desire to visit Pere Lachaise Cemetery (where they are both buried).  But I DID love the tv show "Lupin the Gentleman Thief".  Spoiler alert:  there is an episode where he fakes his death and there is a burial scene in that cemetery...so fictional Lupin got me to do what Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde couldn't!

The cemetery is way way over on the far right hand side of the city in the 20th Arrondissement. It is  the largest green space in Paris at 44 hectares.  It has over 70,000 graves and several commemorative monuments. I took the metro and actually met a very nice mother and grown son from LA on the metro and we walked together for a bit.  She had never been to Europe and they are in Paris for 3 weeks!  

Meet Sylvia and Walter (I told Walter my 3 sons would be very jealous when they heard that Sylvia took her son on a trip!)

There is a huge wall around the cemetery and volunteers at all the entrances to hand out free maps of all the "famous" graves.  It is amazing how many known figures are buried there; Maria Callas, Isadora Duncan, George Haussmann, Michel Legrand, the artist Modigliani Molière, Yves Montand, Edith Piaf, Pissaro, Marcel Proust, George Seurat, Gertrude Stein, Oscar Wilde, and of course Jim Morrison.  Tons of trees and lots of moss on the ground, and the tombs are amazing...mostly very old, but some modern ones as well.  It's laid out like a little city almost with cobblestone paths that have street names.  It was peaceful, historical, and quite beautiful.  As I wandered around I spotted a crypt with the name LUPIN on it.  Now I know the figure in the tv show is fictional but I got excited when I saw a crypt with his name (I'll have to rewatch the episode on Netflix to see if this is the crypt they used in filming!)

the Lupin family tomb!

so much moss growing!

Lovely cobblestone walkways with autumn leaves and fallen chestnuts. It had the perfect Autumn vibe in the rain today!

Gertrude Stein's grave.  It is common Jewish custom to place a small stone on the gravestone of a loved one...look how many stones are on this grave!

Suddenly I found myself in a section of the cemetery that I didn't know existed; the commemorative monuments to concentration camp deportees and Resistance fighters.  There were monuments to the French Jews that had been deported to each of the concentration camps; Ravensbrück, Bergen-Belsen, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Neuengamme, Mauthausen, and Flossengürg.   The Auschwitz one had a lot of verbiage, part of which (translated) says "A little dirt and cinders from Auschwitz are here in perpetuity in memory of their martyrdom".  The was a separate monument to the memory of "Jewish children killed by the nazis".  There were several monuments to the memory of the French Resistance fighters who died.  There was even one for the Spanish Resistance fighters who helped French Jews escape over the Pyrenees.  The French people will never forget the horrors of that time..  A woman passed by me and silently handed me a tissue...I didn't even realize I was crying...that's how moving it was.

For those that died at Neuengamme

For those that died at Buchenwald. Quite a few of the concentration camp memorials had these starving suffering figures.

The plaque on the Auschwitz memorial.

This is one of 5 or 6 memorials dedicated to members of the French Resistance.

When I left I saw the bus stop for the #69 bus that is supposed to be a wonderful route through Paris.  I had walked a lot so a 70 minute bus ride sounded pretty good.  This bus goes all the way from the far East side of Paris all the way across the city, crosses over the Seine , and continues to the far West side of the city and ends near the Eiffel Tower by the Bir Hakeim bridge which has been featured in many movies., including "Inception".  If you ever want a great tour of the city for only bus fare (2.5 euros), hop on the 69 bus! You will see the Louvre, the Tuileries, The Eiffel Tower, St Germain des Pres, the Marais, the Place de Bastille, Les Invalides, Rue Cler and more. When I got off the bus, it was at a venue for the Olympics and there was HUGE scaffolding and bleachers being taken down...it will surely take months to get it all taken down and back to normal.  I hopped on the metro (after asking for directions and UNDERSTANDING the answer on how to get to the metro station!). Back "home", I put my feet up, took an Advil, and called Gary.  My bus had taken me past a pizza place I ate at several years ago with my sister in law and nieces and it gave me a huge hankering for pizza...so off I headed for a lovely pizza dinner in a sweet little restaurant.  I devoured the pizza and glass of Sangiovese and absolutely perfect dessert of a bowl of strawberries and raspberries and a separate bowl of Chantilly cream!  I was in heaven.  I walked 15 minutes home, for a grand total of 18,624 steps!

All that walking earned me this bowl of Chantilly cream!

A bientôt...a demain!