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Cimetière du Père-Lachaise in Paris

Paris randomness

Montmartre Cemetery in Paris

I've been feeling a little under the weather with a chest cold - but not sick enough to end up here in the Cimetière de Montmartre! The cemetery is built below ground level, in an old quarry dug into a hill of Montmartre. It is a lovely, quiet spot for strolling, with large shade trees and winding cobblestone lanes.

The site has a bit of a sinister past. The abandoned quarries were used during the French Revolution as a dumping spot for bodies and a mass grave after riots produced numerous dead. People began calling it the Cimetière des Grandes-Carrières ("cemetery of the large quarries").

It was then officially turned into a cemetery named Champ du Repos ("field of rest”) before settling in as Cimetière de Montmartre.

Living residents include big black crows, mockingbirds, and feral cats that sun themselves on the ancient tombs.The cats are numerous, and apparently well-fed by cat-caring locals who aren't supposed to be feeding them. The cats live in the little above-ground chapels which are about large enough for one person to kneel and pray. When the cemetery closes - a caretaker walks the loop ringing a bell to announce closing time - the cats come out en force to leap about and carry on for the night with the crows.

Many well-knows have found their final resting places here - dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, artists Edgar Degas and Gustave Moreau, writer Emile Zola, and French New Wave filmmaker and director François Truffaut.

The Sanson family tomb is located near the entrance, bearing the name of a long line of industrious executioners (six generations!) who held titles such as "Royal Executioner of France" and "Royal Executioner of Paris." Sanson executions included Marie Antoinette and the King of France.

As long as I'm feeling a little better, perhaps today I'll be able to visit the even more famous Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, which will include a visit to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas!

Paris studio rental

This week, in Paris - my third week - I am renting a little studio in Montmartre. This is the passageway to the entrance to the stairs to the fourth-floor walk-up studio. From my windows, this is the view of the Montmartre Cemetery. The bones of Degas are down there. I haven't found them yet, but I'm sure I will.

During the day, workmen dig graves and pick-axe their way into old cement. At night, the cemetery is locked and taken over by big fat wild cats, and the crows come home to roost. The sounds of crows are lovely in the gloaming of twilight.

This is some graffiti in Montmartre. I like to wander around, up and down the hilly old cobblestone streets.

This is a store window... blue elephant.

These are some of the vines clinging to the side of the walls of Le Lapin Agile.

Women have always been present in Montmartre.

And this little kangaroo topiary is over near the catacombs, but I include him because he's so awesome, just hanging out above ground, above the human ossuaries.

What can I say? I love Paris. I don't ever want to have to go back to where I came from.

Paris flea markets

Paris has the flea markets to out-flea market all flea markets. The most famous are Les Puces de Saint-Ouen, also known as the Porte de Cligancourt (the Metro stop), or simply Les Puces (the fleas). The fleas date back centuries. Used to be that, during the night, rag-and-bone men picked through the garbage thrown out into the streets of Paris, then resold it on the streets. They were called crocheteurs (pickers) and had long hooks to pick through trash for saleable items. Because they sought out their wares at night, they were also called pêcheurs de lune (fishermen of the moon).

Eventually they were forced off the Paris city streets. They banded together outside of the tax zone of the city, and formed villages full of their wares. French photographer Eugène Atget photographed marvelous series of ragpickers, street hawkers, prostitutes and other working folk at the turn of the 20th century. Look him up.

The rag pickers are still out there in the night, picking through garbage. I woke up one night in my little attic room in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés area last week and, hearing muffled sounds on the street below, opened the windows to find two men searching through trash by the glow of a full moon.

I took these photos at a stall in the Marché Vernaison of Les Puces de Saint-Ouen. The market is so large that it is divided up into separate villages with little streets that wind past vendors.

montmartre