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Père Lachaise

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“Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one’s head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow.” 

–Oscar Wilde

When planning a trip to Paris, lots of ideas spring to mind for what you should do: shopping, going to cafes, visiting museums, and walking (or taking the elevator) to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Visiting a cemetery is not usually one of them.

Yet, on my second day in Paris, Claire and I ventured across the Seine to Père Lachaise, one of the world’s most famous cemeteries so that we could see the graves of some of the greatest icons to ever live. It is home to an estimated one million late citizens of the world, many of whom changed it during their time.

Père Lachaise was eerier than most cemeteries (which is saying something) with crows pecking at the moss-eaten tombstones that lined the cobblestone paths. The only thing that was missing was the thin sheet of fog descending on what was already a cool, overcast day. We made our way through the cemetery like we were window shopping, asking each other which tombstone we could see for ourselves. (“I like the headstone on that grave” “I think I would prefer one of the standing ones like that one.”)

We visited the graves of Chopin, Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, Proust, and Balzac, all of which were littered with flowers, love letters, candles, and other esoteric objects that signified people’s enduring love for them. I stood back and admired the various legends who were buried six feet below my feet, whispering to Oscar Wilde and Balzac that I had read their works for class.

Towards the end, we found Oscar Wilde’s tombstone. It was only a tiny bit obvious which one was his, since it featured a bust of him as a sphinx (no one can say that he didn’t have style). Claire later told me that a tour guide standing nearby said that the sphinx once had a penis attached to it, but that someone stole it in the 1960s. Now his grave is encased in glass, which people have kissed while wearing lipstick. 

Spending time in an iconic cemetery brings up many strange questions, like what is worth putting on your tombstone, what kinds of people would ever visit it, and what a person would have to do in order to be remembered for something centuries after their death.

These are thoughts that, much like the one million or so bodies in Père Lachaise, will fester.

From there, Claire and I went for a stroll in a park. It made for a nice relaxing end to our day, as we admired the waterfalls and flowers. It was a beautiful spring day in Paris.

Later that evening, I met up with my aunt and uncle and my uncle’s nephew (they all also ended up being in Paris at the same time as me). Together, the four of us went to see the Eiffel Tower and grab dinner at a nearby cafe. 

The Eiffel Tower is one of the few landmarks in world history that is just a little bit bigger than you think it’s going to be in real life. After years of imagining what it would look like up close, it did not disappoint. It shimmers on the hour every hour for five minutes and I was able to see the glittering tower just as it changed. Child Raquel was squealing on the inside.

We didn’t go up it. We just admired it from afar.

After checking out the Eiffel Tower, we had dinner together and then we called it a night.

I scratched off several things from my Paris itinerary in a single day: the graves of beloved icons and the Eiffel Tower. I was ready to see what my next day in Paris had in store for me.

The Tragic Queen,

Raquel

An American in Paris

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“I love Paris in the Springtime”
–Cole Porter

Like so many little girls growing up in the US, I always dreamt of going to Paris. It consumed my personality: I had an Eiffel Tower lamp, an Eiffel Tower statue, and a calendar of famous Parisian landmarks. I even made a painting of the Eiffel Tower once. 

Anytime I saw a movie or tv show set in Paris, it seized my imagination, and I could suddenly picture myself strutting down cobblestone roads and seeing the Seine lit up with street lights late at night. 

Many great American writers lived in Paris for a time, like Hemingway, Baldwin, and Stein. It made me hope that one day I would do a stint in Paris as well, reading and writing in an epicenter of art and culture.

Despite all of my dreams of visiting, I didn’t always think it was going to happen. Paris always seemed nebulously far away, more of a romantic ideal than a potential reality, but when my friend Claire returned to Paris to finish her studies at the Sorbonne, I asked if I could spend Spring Break sleeping on her couch. I was thrilled when she said yes. 

Mon ami

While she went to work, I tooled around town, doing all of the touristy things that locals would never dream of doing. I waited in long lines, seeing the sights, and mumbled my way through the few French phrases that I knew (“Je suis désolé, est-ce que vous parlez anglais?” was the most popular and I left out half the words.)

The day that I arrived, we started by getting brunch at a restaurant called Jozi. We ate avocado toast and mimosas, while I fought my jet lag and lost. It was my first Parisian meal, not including the tiny bread roll that I was given on the plane, and it more than lived up to my expectations. 

After that, we walked along the Seine and waited in line for the Notre Dame Cathedral. The line was so long that it zig-zagged across the plaza.

It was one of the first times in years that Notre Dame Cathedral was open to the public since the fire in 2019. The bricks of the cathedral are now a lighter color than they used to be, but you otherwise cannot tell that the church is any different. The line moved shockingly fast and before we knew it we were being ushered through the church. 

We took our time milling through the cathedral, looking at the paintings, listening to the church organs, lighting candles, and buying rosaries for devout Catholic grandmothers.

The cathedral is just as beautiful as I imagined, with sunlight streaming in through the stained glass windows, dimly lit by candles, and smelling vaguely of incense.  It has been perfectly restored since the fire. 

Parts of it were a surprise to me, like the statues of saints that lined the front of the cathedral and how they stared down at you, almost as though they were doing it from heaven. 

It’s hard to find an original thing to say about Notre Dame Cathedral, the beautiful gothic church that has captured the minds of writers, artists, and Disney execs around the world. All I can say is that it’s worth seeing if you ever find yourself in Paris (and Paris is not a bad place to find yourself). 

After that, I dragged my tired ass home. I could barely keep my eyes open or feel my feet, but I had gotten my first taste of the city. I was ready to spend the next day conquering the city, dominating the public transportation system, and getting to know Paris.

I’ll keep you posted!

The Tragic Queen,

Raquel

P.S.: Check out my previous blog post about the feminist birthday party I attended a few weeks ago that raised money for nonprofits aimed at upholding women’s rights around the world.