Monday, October 23, 2017:
Our vacation was almost over, it was our last full day in Paris on a crisp and rainy day.
I was out the door before everybody else as I wanted to see one of Paris' more bizarre and yet interesting attractions, the Père Lachaise Cemetery.
A shoe store on my way to the Metro
The Metro was crowded and a bit
slow but I made it to the cemetery
Flower sellers galore near the
Père Lachaise Cemetery entrance
The cemetery is part sculpture garden
Fallen WWI Comrades
The cemetery is part
architectural wonder too
Silence was in the air
So was moisture
This cemetery its like a mini-city
Those would be its mini-churches
don't you think?
Part of the reason for my visit is that several famous philosophers, writers, poets and entertainers are buried inside the walls of this huge cemetery.
Who you ask?
Well for one . . .
. . . Oscar Wilde
The bawdy Irish poet and playwrite from the second half of the 19th-century.
People still leave heavily lip sticked kisses for him to this day.
Not me.
Just a normal citizen of the
Père Lachaise as the raindrops
started to fall
Guarding the Vault
He seemed wise
WWII tribute to the French
who died in the Nazi Prison
Camp at . . .
. . . Mauthausen in Austria
Side view of the same monument
A tribute to the Spanish citizens
who died fighting the Nazis in WWII
despite Spain's fascist leader
Francisco Franco's neutral stance
More cemetery architecture
Intricate
A Bohemian painter I presume
Lots of weeping over thousands
of lost friends and family
It was truly a Fall day in Paris
I only sought out one other grave sight on my visit . . .
Jim Morrison
Lead singer of The Doors
I will never forget Emmett Arndt playing The Doors breakthrough song, "Light My Fire," over and over again in the University of Washington's Crew House during football two-a-days back in 1967.
Lots of gum left on this tree
near Morrison's grave
Cool old door
I hustled back to our apartment after my abbreviated visit to the Père Llachaise Cemetery so as to not hold up my mates any longer.
Nothing says Europe
quite like a Vespa
I still mail postcards on these trips
to family and friends
I joined Laurie, Loren and Sandy for another Metro ride, this time to the Montmartre district.
Named Paris' BEST
Boulangerie in 2010 and 2015
It looked tempting
One baguette would have
to suffice on this day
This wall in the Montmartre says
"I Love You" in many languages
Yep, that pretty much sums it up for the four of us.
. . . will you do the Fandango?
Absinthe in the Montmartre
in the 1800s
Probably not as good for the artistic soul as many a writer, poet, painter and actor thought back then.
The STEEP steps up to the Montmartre
We wisely took the funicular instead of honing our bodies to perfection.
In front of our restaurant on the
Montmartre from a few days ago
One of several fine eateries
on the Montmartre
Artist Oils
More artist oils
On artist row
Side walk dining and/or
drinking is a daily must
in Paris
Our walk continued
Smoke 'em if you got 'em!
Why not a seahorse?
Of course there just had to be a
tight rope walker in the Montmartre
Will Mike Contreras accept the
Salvador Dalí mustache challenge?
Random Montmartre home
Laurie and Sandy on the prowl
"Off with their heads!"
How many cafes are their in Paris?
Not many with chairs
like these I'll bet
What goes on behind those doors
I wonder?
Lunch time date after we
reunited with Mark and Susie
Boys will be perverts
Good idea Loren
Hmmm . . .
We walked through Paris' Pigalle neighborhood which is rated PG.
For Perverts and Germans only.
The gang all together for a photo op
in front of Pigalle's Moulin Rouge
On to the Latin Quarter . . .
A used book store owned by a man
from San Francisco, California
Used books were two deep
on this shelf
Red door means trouble?
Walking on an ancient street
We were all home in the early evening as we needed to back for Tuesday's early morning flights back to the USA.
A Halloween themed Fanta
for the road
Sandy and Loren at our last dinner
of the vacation
They look contented in this photo.
I think that they both truly had a good time visiting Lyon, Mombarruzo, Rome and Paris over the last two weeks.
I know we did acting as their tour guides.
A BIG thank you, as usual, to Mark and Susie Johnson for getting this trip organized, we could not have done this without their efforts.
On Tuesday we fly home, the adventure completed.
Grazie and merci for staying tuned for the last two weeks but now we are ready for some quiet time back in Camarillo.
Until the next adventure . . .
No comments:
Post a Comment