Famous graves and forest walks

Would you have guessed that Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde are buried in Paris?!

Our first stop today was Père Lachaise Cemetery. The largest cemetery in the inner city of Paris that was set up when Napoleon was trying to move cemeteries out of the cities to prevent disease spreading. Early on this cemetery was most unpopular and ran the risk of running out of money, so they actually dug up famous people who were buried elsewhere and moved them here to make it more appealing! It certainly worked, today there are approximately 70,000 tombs housing a million souls and it covers 100 acres, which is bigger than Disneyland. It has also become a national cemetery to remember important events from holocaust memorials to airline disasters and revolutionary uprisings, this is France after all. Today it is still a working cemetery, but with strict rules. You must have lived

or died in Paris and a 20 square-foot plot will cost northwards of 10,000 euros......It is however a beautiful resting ground and traditionally home to many famous artists and writers.

We wandered around a route passing many notables including Oscar Wilde, Moliére, Jim Morrison and Chopin to name a few. So many fantastic contributors to the artistic and literary society that we know today. Quite moving was the memorials to those who passed away in concentration camps and fighting as part of the resistance here in France. There is a memorial for each concentration camp, each unique and confronting to ensure that we do not forget or glorify the atrocities that occurred during the war. Would highly recommend as a tour, even though it is of a graveyard!

Crom loves the wicker chairs that face the pavement outside the restaurants here so we scouted some of those for lunch and while we had lunch we were able to watch a fresh set of roadworks occurring here in preparation for a new transportation line! Fresh salads in the sun with a wine/beer was such a treat after all the cooked vege in Turkey!

Down the road we found Bastille, a buzzy area of Paris that we would like to come back to someday, although there was another reminder of the current climate there. A line for asylum seekers outside the immigration and integration office there. It really does make us feel so lucky to be from New Zealand and to have a home we can choose to go back to.

Nearby was the start of the Coulée verte René-Dumont or Promenade plantée. A 4.7 km elevated linear park built on top of obsolete railway infrastructure. A beautiful green walk that ends nearby a huge park!
We ended our walk with a citron framboise slushy and a rest in the park by the lake (yes big enough to have a lake in it!) before coming home to do some much needed research on New York and the rest of our time in the states, while enjoying the sun setting behind the Eiffel tower. Such a surreal setting.