We had an afternoon to spend in the famous Pere Lachaise cemetery here in Paris. It is a remarkable city of the dead. We will be going back before we leave because 2 hours was not enough time to take some of the photographs that I wanted to take. This cemetery was founded in 1804 when the city of Paris needed more room to bury the dead. Pere Lachaise is the largest cemetery in the city of Paris. Père Lachaise Cemetery has more than 3.5 million visitors, making it the most visited cemetery in the world.
Many famous people who died in Paris are buried here. The most famous and the most visited is the tomb of Jim Morrison of the Doors.

Jim Morrison’s grave, died 1997 in Paris

Edit Piaf, famous Parisian singer

Oscar Wilde’s grave
There were many French Jewish families that were sent to German concentration camps when Germany occupied France during WWII. There are several memorials to these innocent French citizens in the graveyard. Here are a couple of them;

Memorial to the children killed by the Nazis

memorial to the people killed in concentration camps
And on a much lighter note; here is the grave of Victor Noir. He was a French journalist who is famous for the manner of his death and the sculpture that lies on top of his grave. I could not think of a good way to word this description so I will let Wikipedia do it for me.
“A life-sized bronze statue was sculpted by Jules Dalou to mark his grave, portrayed in a realistic style as though he had just fallen on the street, dropping his hat which is depicted beside him.
The sculpture has a very noticeable protuberance in Noir’s trousers. This has made it one of the most popular memorials for women to visit in the famous cemetery. Myth says that placing a flower in the upturned top hat after kissing the statue on the lips and rubbing its genital area will enhance fertility, bring a blissful sex life.” As you can see from the wearing away of the crotch area, many women have taken up the idea since he died in 1870.
Over one million people have been buried here and there are many famous French politicans, inventors and artists who are scattered among many family mausoleums. It is a cemetery that has many monuments and statues to commemorate the dead. Here are some of the more interesting photographs that I took.
And we found one live woman practicing her clarinet in the middle of the monuments. The music was enchanting.More views of Paris to follow.