Cimetière du Père Lachaise
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Metro: Philippe Auguste, Père Lachaise or Gambetta
The Philippe Auguste metro station is close to the cemetery’s entrance on Boulevard de Ménilmontant, or you could take the Père Lachaise station which is close to one of the cemetery’s side entrances. It is also possible to enter from the Gambetta station, whose entrance is close to the tomb of Oscar Wilde. This is Paris’ most famous cemetery, it is also its largest. Built by Napoleon in 1804, it was laid out by Alexandre-Théodore Brogniart and covers 48 hectares (118 acres) on a wooded hillside. It must rank as the world’s most visited graveyard.
One of a series established around the city, which included Montparnasse, Montmartre and Passy, Père Lachaise was initially thought to be too far out from the city centre and was as such not a popular burial place. Its popularity grew as the city spread. It takes its name from Louis XIV’s confessor, Père François de la Chaise, who lived in a Jesuit house near here. Despite its initial unpopularity, it has been extended six times and contains some very famous graves, including writer Honoré de Balzac, composer Frédéric Chopin, actress Sarah Bernhardt and the singers Edith Piaf and Jim Morrison. Marcel Proust is also buried here while the remains of Molière and La Fontaine were moved here in 1817 to add a bit of glamour to the still new cemetery.
Cimetière du Père Lachaise
Opening times: 8am–5.30pm daily (from 8.30am Sat, 9am Sun,
mid-Mar–early Nov to 6pm)
Tel: 01. 55 25 82 10
Did You Know?
Père Lachaise is officially called Cimetière de l’Est (Eastern Cemetery).
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Metro: Buttes-Chaumont or Botzaris
At 25 hectares (62 acres), this is the third-largest park in Paris, and also one of the most surprising. It started from rather unpromising beginnings: a quarry that was being used as a rubbish dump overlooking a gallows. However, Baron Haussmann saw the potential of the hilly site and commissioned landscape architect Adolphe Alphand to convert it into a park in the 1860s. Others who worked on it included the engineer Darcel and a landscape gardener called Barillet-Deschamps. Together they created a lake, complete with a man-made island of real and artificial rocks, on which they placed a Roman temple. The park contains more than 5 kilometres (3 miles) of trails and walkways as well as several bridges. Apart from the island there are also cliffs, a grotto which encloses a 20-metre-high (65 feet) waterfall, and several gardens in different styles, including English and Chinese. The lake is popular with boaters, while children love the donkey rides.
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