Day with the Dead

Yesterday, we spent our day visiting the dead at catacombs and cemeteries.  Despite our time with the departed, the sunny skies and Paris sights kept us from being too morbid.

We started the day at the Catacombes where Paris decided to move the bones of the dead after the cemeteries were deemed to be sources of infections.  Since its opening in the 18th century, people have visited these underground former stone quarry tunnels and the elite used to hold parties there.  Nowadays, it's a major tourist attraction, perhaps in part to its role in the 39 Clues series which Declan and I are reading.  In the first book of this series, brother and sister, Amy and Dan end up in Paris and have a dangerous escapade in the catacombs.

The Catacombes are worth the long wait in line

the walk through tight tunnels

to see the amazing piles of bones.

At first I was kind of shocked seeing femurs and skulls piled on the floor, but as I walked by the neatly stacked bones through tunnel after tunnel the patterns seem more abstract and the bones took on their own beauty.  Very impressive!!

The perfect anti-dote to the maze of bones -- a toy store with an Alice in Wonderland facade.

Then, back to more death at Cimetière du Montparnasse.  We loved all the sculptures people had on top of their above the ground tombs.  And notice the planters built along the sides -- necessary where there's little room (or ground) to plant along side.

Brancusi's famous kiss sculpture on the grave of a Russian anarchist who committed suicide for love.

Then, to continue our wallow in the departed -- off to Cimetière du Pere-Lachaise where I thought the map in our tourist book would be enough to find Jim Morrison's grave.  I thought wrong -- after a lot of wandering, circling, retracing and squabbling, we finally found both Jim and Oscar Wilde.

I did feel sorry for the people buried nearby these two famous ones especially Jim Morrison, because despite the attempts at keeping people back with some fencing, the tomb next to Jim had lots of graffiti on it.  While wandering around, we were again impressed with the statues and the stained glass windows.  As Cormac said, "Fancy!"

With tired feet, we ended the day satisfied with our tour of the dead in Paris!  Today, we're in search of churches and hopefully a little less walking -- maybe a boat tour of the Seine.