Pere Lachaise Cemetery Famous Graves Guided Walking Tour Paris

Père Lachaise: the garden cemetery of 1804

Père Lachaise opened in 1804 on a hill in the east of Paris, on land that had belonged to a Jesuit house whose most famous resident was the confessor of the king; his nickname gave the cemetery its name. Designed as a garden with winding paths, it was unpopular at first because it was far from the centre, so the city moved the remains of two celebrated writers here in 1817. Today the cemetery covers 44 hectares with about 70,000 plots and tombs ranging from Gothic chapels and Egyptian obelisks to modern sculpture, which is why it is often called the biggest open-air museum in Paris.

How to get to Père Lachaise: metro line 2 to Philippe Auguste or Alexandre Dumas, or line 3 to Gambetta for the upper entrance. Père Lachaise opening hours are roughly 8:00 to 18:00 from mid-March to early November and until 17:30 in winter, with later openings on weekends. Our Père Lachaise guided tour starts at the Alexandre Dumas exit at 10:00.

The lipstick tomb of the Irish playwright

The most photographed monument in the cemetery stands in division 89 near the upper boundary: the tomb of the Irish wit and playwright who died in Paris in 1900, a massive block of stone carved in 1914 into a winged, sphinx-like figure in flight. From the 1990s visitors began kissing the stone with red lipstick until the grease started eating into it, and in 2011 a glass barrier was placed around the monument; the kisses are now on the glass, which is cleaned regularly. The guide explains the epitaph, the controversy over the figure's anatomy and why the writer, who died poor in a hotel room on the Left Bank, was moved here from a suburban grave in 1909.

The lane in front of the tomb is one of the best places to understand the social map of the cemetery: wealthy nineteenth-century families bought plots in perpetuity and built chapels, while many later plots are leased for ten, thirty or fifty years, which is why older tombs are sometimes cleared.

The composer's grave and the playwright moved here in 1817

In division 11, on the slope above the main entrance, lies the Polish composer who died in Paris in 1849, aged thirty-nine. His white marble tomb is topped by a weeping muse holding a broken lyre and is almost always covered in fresh flowers; his heart, following his wish, was taken back to Warsaw. The guide tells the story of his years in Paris, the funeral at the Madeleine church and the funeral march that was played there.

A few lanes away in division 25 stand two matching stone sarcophagi on pillars: the graves of the greatest French comic playwright, who died in 1673 after collapsing on stage during his own play, and of the fabulist whose animal fables every French child learns. Neither was buried here originally; the city transferred their remains in 1817 to give the new cemetery prestige, and it worked. This is the oldest part of the Père Lachaise walking tour and the most atmospheric, with the oldest trees and the narrowest paths.

The rock singer's grave and the artists' quarter

The most visited grave in Père Lachaise is a modest plot in division 6, not far from the main entrance, where the American rock singer who died in Paris in 1971 at the age of twenty-seven is buried. For decades fans covered the surrounding tombs with graffiti, so the grave is now fenced off and watched, with a bronze plaque bearing a Greek inscription that his father chose. A tree beside the path is still covered with chewing gum and messages. The guide puts the singer's last months in Paris in context and explains how the cemetery manages its most famous and most troublesome resident.

Around this area the Père Lachaise famous tombs come thick and fast: painters, a celebrated French singer of the mid-twentieth century in division 97, actors of the silent screen and the opera, each with a monument that says something about its time. The guide chooses according to the group's interests, which is one of the advantages of a small guided tour over a map.

The Communards' Wall, the memorials and the crematorium

The upper, eastern corner of the cemetery holds the most serious history. The Mur des Fédérés, the Communards' Wall, is where 147 fighters of the Paris Commune were shot on 28 May 1871 after a final battle among the tombs and buried where they fell; a plain plaque marks the wall, which has been a place of political pilgrimage ever since. Along the nearby paths stand the memorials to the French deported to the concentration camps of the Second World War, each a powerful piece of modern sculpture.

At the top of the hill rises the crematorium and columbarium of 1889, the first in France, a neo-Byzantine building with a dome and galleries of niches, several of them belonging to famous dancers, writers and singers. From here the lanes descend back towards the Alexandre Dumas exit where the Paris cemetery tour ends. If you are wondering whether Père Lachaise is worth visiting, this upper section alone, with its views over the rooftops of eastern Paris, answers the question.