Père Lachaise

Bonjour!
Today I visited another major Parisian cemetery, Père Lachaise, in the 20th arrondissement.  It was much larger than Cimitière Montparnasse, and there were more tourists, but it's such an enormous area that it wasn't at all crowded or noisy, which was really nice.  (It was also easy to spot the graves of famous people, because those were the only places where there really were crowds of people.)  I didn't see Oscar Wilde's grave, but I did see where Edith Piaf and Jim Morrison are buried.

There were also a number of monuments to groups of people famous for reasons far less cheerful than their artistic success.  Part of the cemetery is known as le mur des fusilés, which could roughly be translated as "the wall of people shot to death," although it involved homages to people who were killed in other terrible ways, as well, particularly during the Holocaust.  Among other things, this part of the cemetery made me realize, as I hadn't really before, how strong the memory of the Holocaust and the Second World War are here--stronger, I think, than in the States--certainly due in part to the fact that such a large part of the war took place here.  In addition to the vivid sculpted images on many of these monuments, most also had inscriptions giving details about the circumstances of death for the victims they're commemorating.  Many of them ended with the same command: Souvenez-vous (remember).

Mauthausen

Auschwitz-Birkenau 

Dachau

Oranienburg-Sachsenhausen

However, the vast majority of this cemetery is made up of personal tombs, and, as at Montparnasse, I found some of these to be the most aesthetically interesting.  They weren't as artsy, on the whole, as the ones at Montparnasse (which was, after all, somewhat of an artistic neighborhood), but it was a very pretty place to walk through, nonetheless.  I especially liked the abundance of trees, moss, shrubs, lawns... greenery abounds here, which I though was a nice reminder that life continues on.

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...

Les catacombes de Paris

Salut!
So this morning my friend Anna and I visited the catacombs of Paris.  I've been meaning to go since I got here, and finally we decided this was the weekend to go.  (Apparently, a lot of other people decided this, too, because even though it was cold, rainy, and 11 on a Saturday morning, we had to wait in line outside the entrance for a full hour to get in.  But it was worth it!)  So what are these catacombs doing in Paris, anyway?  Well, originally the ground was quarried by the ancient Romans when they were building Paris, but this subterranean space didn't become a final resting place until 1786, when a cemetery near Les Halles, Paris's principal market district at the time, became incapable of containing its contents which were infecting the local residents and attracting rats.  So the city decided to make the old quarries into an ossuary, with the bones arranged by type rather than by owner.  It's an enormous space, not all open to the public.  I think the creepiest part was knowing I was about 60 feet underground in a series of long tunnels with only two ways out.  But it was a really interesting trip, and all the bones provided a good distraction from thinking about being so far underground.  Many of them were rather artfully arranged, and there was a bit of sculpture (courtesy of bored gravediggers) as well.  Visiting the catacombs was a really cool experience!

the entrance to the catacombs--very unassuming 

Anna in the tunnel leading to the ossuary part of the catacombs

a nifty sculpture 

It's hard to tell, because we weren't allowed to use a flash, but the skulls are arranged in the shape of a heart.

The exit--we made it out alive!

Panthéon

Bonjour tous!
Today I finally visited the Panthéon, which I've been meaning to visit more or less since I got here, but just never got around to before, which is silly, since it's not at all far from my art history classes and the Jardin du Luxembourg.
So what is the Panthéon?  An intriguing question.  Wikipedia does a pretty good job of summarizing the history and purpose of this space, which I myself learned all about when I was there.  Briefly, the Panthéon is the current name (dating from the French Revolution) for what was once the Cathédrale Sainte-Geneviève, and, like Westminster Abbey in England, it now houses the tombs of many important French citizens--Alexandre Dumas (The Three Musketeers), Victor Hugo (see my post on the 16th arrondissement), Voltaire, Rousseau (see my post on Parc Jean-Jacques Rousseau), Pierre and Marie Curie, etc.  (Marie Curie is the only woman interred there on her own merit--the only other woman there was only included to not separate her from her husband... which is ironic considering that the building was constructed in the first place to honor the relics of Sainte Geneviève, the patroness of Paris.) There are also some more general dedications there as well--like to les Justes de France (justes here could be roughly translated as "the righteous ones"), who are numerous French citizens who helped French Jews either hide, fake papers, or flee the country during the Nazi occupation.  It's also got another example of a Foucault's Pendulum, which some of you may remember I also saw at le musée des arts et métiers back in October.  Just more evidence that the world is rotating on its own axis and around the sun!  So all in all, it's a very interesting place.

the Panthéon

Can you spot the swinging pendulum?

the central dome, from which the pendulum hangs 

ROUSSEAU

Marie and Pierre Curie

Les invalides, la tour Eiffel, Trocadéro, Porte Dauphine

Halloween!

So first of all, this post really has nothing to do with Halloween.  Here's the extent of my Halloween-related activities today: visited a tomb (not at all Halloween-related, but tombs sort of fit the theme), saw a little English boy in the metro wearing a black cape and red devil horns, ate some candy corn, got a Halloween card from Dad.  (Thanks Dad!)  However, the weather seemed to be celebrating by finally letting up and giving us some much needed SUN!  So I planned a nice outdoor day for myself.  (I don't have any classes on Mondays!  And tomorrow's off for Toussaint, All Saints' Day, so I don't even have much homework right now.)  Second of all, the theme of the day is war.
First, I headed over to l'hôtel des invalides, which is a really big complex.  It's part hospital, part museum, part church, and part Napoleon's tomb!  It also has this gorgeous big gilt dome, which I've kept seeing from all over Paris, so I thought it was finally time to go check it out.  Anyway, I didn't bother with the museums (all war-related) today--it was too nice out--but I did go into Napoleon's tomb--if it can really be called that.  There were some other people interred there as well, and tomb doesn't seem to go far enough--not even mausoleum--maybe memorial is more accurate.  Anyway, it's a really interesting space.  I didn't realize from the outside, but there must be several smaller domes as well, because they're there on the inside!  All beautifully gilt and painted, of course...

les invalides, seen looking south

You can also see la tour Eiffel from there!

There were lots of cannons!

the dome seen from inside the courtyard 

Another cannon!  You can see Louis XIV's sun symbol and the symbol of France, the fleur-de-lys, on it.

And all of a sudden, there was a tank!  Not from the reign of Louis XIV, I think...

the inside of the dome

Such a big tomb for such a little man!  Although he was very influential...

The floors were as beautiful as the ceilings!

the altar

Stained glass and gilt cherubs: French art in a nutshell!

more stained glass (up in the dome)

more stained glass, and Maréchal Foch's tomb, and a WWI memorial 

more floor art--the omnipresent fleur-de-lys

What a floor!

This was on the way to Napoleons' tomb.  In case of any doubt?

a scale model of the whole complex

a close up of the dome, seen looking north

Then, I wanted to see the Musée Rodin, Rodin Museum, which is right near by, because it's supposed to have a nice garden with a lot of his sculptures in it, but it was, of course closed, because today is Monday and many museums here are closed on Mondays (hence museum Wednesdays for me).  So I walked over to la tour Eiffel next, which I had been intending to do anyway.  I wasn't planning on going to the top, and I didn't, because of course the lines were enormous, but I was at the top when I was here with high school three years ago, so that's okay.  But I did enjoy wandering around les champs du Mars (that's Mars as in the Roman god of war) for a bit.  Most of the grass was off-limits (the grass in Paris apparently needs to rest in the winter) but there were some grassy places off to the sides which still had a nice view of the tower, so I camped out there and enjoyed my baguette à la mimolette.  Mimolette is a type of French cheese; it's sort of like cheddar, although I think it's a bit more mild.  But it's orange and delicious, so it works for me!  And then I sunbathed for a while there--the French say either prendre un bain du soleil or faire du lézard, litterally "to take a sun bath" and "to do make like a lizard"--such delightful ways to say you're catching some rays!  It was so nice to feel the warm sun and to have my bare feet on the grass and to smell the grass!  I love how much there is to do and see in the city, but I think on the whole I really am a country girl.

L'école militaire, the Military School, which faces the Eiffel Tower at the far end of le champ de mars. 

As far as I could tell, this was a peace monument...

LA TOUR EIFFEL!!!

my view from lunch today

My lunch today, baguette à la mimolette, enjoyed very much al fresco!

the garden, with sunbathers

closer...

The Eiffel Tower: it's not as solid as it appears from a distance!  (viewed from underneath)

I guess chrysanthemums are the traditional fall flower here, too.

Anyway, once I'd had my fill of lizarding, I continued on my journey, passing under la tour Eiffel, over the Pont Iéna, and ending up not at grandmother's house but at les jardins et la place du Trocadéro.  Now, I know from my history class that Trocadero was a battle that the French won in Spain--more precisely, the first battle won by the new French regime after Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo.  And according to Wikipedia's scanty article on it, the area I visited was built and modified for two Universal Expositions held in Paris, and the name is to honor that same battle.  I didn't linger too long, because there were a lot of people there, and I had run out of water and couldn't find any more!

A statue on le pont Iéna--note the artful placement of the horse's mane.

view of the Seine from Iéna, with Sacré-Coeur in the background

Trocadéro

la tour Eiffel as seen from la place du Trocadéro

a monument to WWI soldiers at Trocadéro

Maréchal Foch again, I believe

So I headed to my next destination, the Porte Dauphine metro station, not too far away, where there is still one of two remaining art-deco metro entrances.  It didn't take much time to see, but it was cool, and I could (and did) walk from there to l'Arc de triomphe, which is even prettier in the sun than in the rain, and then, exhausted, I took the metro home!

the Art-Deco metro entrance from the inside 

detail of the panels

all together now

More mums, and some foliage to boot!

More mums... note the shadow of me taking the photo!

L'arc de triomphe 

The metro, the Eiffel Tower, and the Arc of Triumph--a very Parisian view!