Montparnasse

Bonjour!
Today I decided to take advantage of the mostly sunny weather to see some outdoor attractions.  I decided to head to the south of the city to the Montparnasse district, in the 14th arrondissement.  First I checked out le Jardin Atlantique, or the Atlantic Garden, which was constructed on top of part of the enormous Gare du Montparnasse (a huge train and subway station).  I read that it was named the Atlantic Garden because the plants there are typically found along the Atlantic coast.  I'm not sure that this park particularly called the Atlantic Ocean to my mind, or at least not the part where I grew up!  But for being built over a busy train station, it was surprisingly quiet and tranquil.  (I think the big walls all around helped block out a lot of the city noise.)

Then I walked over to the nearby Cimitière de Montparnasse, the local cemetery which is the final resting place to many people, some of whom were famous.  For example, I stumbled across the graves of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, Charles Baudelaire, Susan Sontag, and Samuel Beckett there.  And there were also some really interesting graves for people who were less well-known.  Parisian cemeteries are really a totally different creature than American ones; not only do they have more interesting tombs and more stained glass than American ones usually do, but all the graves are squished together, not spread out like they are at home, really bringing to mind the idea of a cemetery as a city of the dead, but not at all in a morbid way.  The cemeteries here are more like museums!  And they also tend to be tranquil, sheltered from the usual hustle and bustle of Paris.

stained glass from a family tomb

Sartre (philosopher and writer)
and de Beauvoir (writer and feminist)

This was one of many weepy ladies on people's graves.

another weepy lady 

Is it a grave or a cat?

This bust graced the top of another grave.

I've never seen a statue of a centaur in an American cemetery.
(Or anywhere else, ever, for that matter.)

Sontag (American writer)

Beckett (Waiting for Godot)

Is it a grave or a giant bird made of mirrors?

This last photo was of a funny sign I saw on a store near the cemetery.  I think something was lost in translation...