5 cemeteries you should visit in Paris
Peaceful, beautiful and full of incredible sculptures, Paris’s cemeteries are havens of tranquility – and offer a chance to visit the resting places of history’s most famous people
1. Cimetière du Père Lachaise
16, rue du Repos, 75020, Paris
Opened in 1804, with over 69,000 ornate tombs and more than 1 million people buried there, Cimetière du Père Lachaise is often described as a 44-hectare sculpture garden. As the final resting place for the likes of Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison and Édith Piaf, it is also one of the most-visited cemeteries in the world.
Who’s there?
Rock star, Jim Morrison
Composer Frédéric Chopin
Playwright Molière
Singer Édith Piaf
Writers Balzac, Proust, Gertrude Stein and Oscar Wilde
Actress Sarah Bernhardt
Interesting fact:
Père Lachaise was the first cemetery in the world to issue a code of conduct after fans started taking drugs and having sex on Jim Morrison’s grave.
Nearest Metro station:
Père Lachaise or Philippe Auguste
2. Cimetière de Montmartre
20, avenue Rachel, 75018 Paris
As befits a cemetery set in one of Paris’ artistic hubs, Montmartre is the final resting place of many famous artists who lived and worked in the area. Set in an abandoned gypsum quarry, it is also one of the most atmospheric.
Who’s there?
Writers Émile Zola, Alexandre Dumas
Film director François Truffaut
Dancer Vaslav Nijinsky
Interesting fact:
During the French Revolution, the abandoned quarries that eventually became the cemetery were used as mass graves for those killed during riots – including several hundred Swiss Guards killed defending the Tuileries on 10 August 1792.
Nearest Metro station:
Blanche or Place de Clichy
3. Cimetière du Montparnasse
3, boulevard Edouard Quinet 75014 Paris
Also known as ‘The Left Bank Cemetery’, Montparnasse is regarded by many Parisians as a peaceful park in the heart of one of the busiest quarters of the city. As well as countless ornate headstones you’ll find over 1,200 trees, mainly sophoras, thuyas, maples, ash, lime trees and conifers.
Who’s there?
Poet Charles Baudelaire
Playwright Samuel Beckett
Industrialist André Citroën
Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre
Writer Simone de Beauvoir
Singer Serge Gainsbourg
Interesting fact:
Fans of Serge Gainsbourg leave metro tickets atop his tombstone as a homage to his famous song ‘Le Poinçonneur des Lilas’ (The Ticket Puncher of Lilas).
Nearest Metro station:
Edgar Quinet or Raspail
4. Cimetière de Passy
2, rue du Commandant-Schlœsing 75016 Paris
Opened in 1820 on the orders of Napoleon 1, in an expensive residential and commercial district near the Champs-Élysées, this small cemetery fast became the aristocratic necropolis of Paris. Sheltered by a chestnut trees, it sits in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, just behind the Trocadéro.
Who’s there?
Impressionist painters Edouard Manet and Berthe Morisot
Composers Claude DeBussy and Gabriel Faure
Bao Dai, the last emperor of Vietnam
American newspaper publisher James Gorden Bennett Jr
Interesting fact:
It is the only cemetery in Paris to have a heated waiting-room.
Nearest Metro station:
Trocadéro
5. Cimetière de Picpus
35 Rue de Picpus, 75012, Paris
One of the trickiest cemeteries to find in Paris, this large private cemetery is tucked behind a nondescript wooden door, well away from the crowded city centre in the 12th Arrondissement. Noblemen who were guillotined during the French Revolution were buried here in mass graves on land seized from the Convent of the Chanoinesses de St-Augustin, as were 16 Carmelite nuns who went to their death singing hymns.
Who’s there?
1,306 victims guillotined between 14 June to 27 July, 1794
The 16 Carmelite nuns guillotined on 17 July, 1794
Marquis de Lafayette, a French aristocrat and military officer who fought for the United States in the American Revolutionary War
Architect of Versaille, Richard Mique
Interesting fact:
Lafayette is buried with dirt from Bunker Hill in the States and his grave is watched over by an American flag, which the Nazis left untouched when they occupied Paris in the Second World War. Lafayette was only allowed to be buried in the cemetery because some of his wife’s relatives who were guillotined during the French Revolution, a prerequisite to getting a plot there.
Nearest Metro station:
Nation or Picpus
Main image: Tombs of Pere Lachaise cemetery (Shutterstock)
