
There are
four major
cemeteries in
Paris, and each has their big name resident bringing tens of thousand of visitors each year. The largest cemetery is in the eastern part of Paris,
Pere-Lachaise, and the biggest draw there is probably
Jim Morrison,
Isadora Duncan, Oscar Wilde and
Chopin. In the north, the 18th arrondissement section of the city is
Montmartre Cemetery where the great dancer
Vaslav Nijinsky is buried and the "Beethoven of the Guitar"
Fernando
Sor.
Passy Cemetery in the 16th arrondissement is where
Claude Debussy is interred and, for you silent movie buffs,
Pearl White, the star of
The Perils of Pauline serial. And finally there is the
Montparnasse Cemetery in the south. There you can find the graves of playwrights
Samuel Beckett and
Eugène Ionesco, Dadaists
Man Ray and
Tristan Tzara and probably the most visited and garlanded grave in all of Paris:
Serge Gainsbourg. His grave site is forever covered in flowers, cigarettes, metro tickets, personal notes and odd little objects that derive their significance from his lyrics. Earlier this week we spent two nights in our favorite fleabag-Henry Miller-down and out kind of hotel around the corner from Montparnasse. I stopped by one morning in the snow, said hello to Serge, took a couple of pictures and had a very respectful snowball fight with my son. This may sound more macabre then intended, but there’s nothing like a cemetery blanketed in snow.