Recently I had a conversation about Oscar Wilde, and I thought I might post some photographs of his grave and Père Lachaise Cemetery for those who have never been there.

Père Lachaise Cemetery of Paris is a city of its own. The City of the Dead, lined with streets tightly packed with tombs, chapels and mausoleums, housing more than 70.000 bodies, and many more in the Columbarium.

Here is a list of the graves you might check to find out that you are familiar with the names, and actually love and admire many of them. I could go on and on talking how amazing this place is. I spent there four hours and still didn’t see all of the graves I wanted to.

 

You can take a guided tour, you can walk the cemetery by yourself with a map in your hands, but please plan this visit.  Don’t listen to those who tell you that  Père Lachaise is a creepy place. It is not. This visit would be one of the best memories of your life.

Oscar Wilde’s grave is not much of a ‘resting’ place. Thousands of his admirers traveled to plant a kiss on the tomb surface.  This tradition started  in the 80s-90s.

These photographs were taken in 2009. In 2011 a glass panel was installed to protect the hundred-year old monument from damage, which panel was soon covered with new lipstick kisses. The kisses you see on my pictures are all gone after the renovation which, by the way, was financed by Irish Government ( or it is what I have heard). I know these kisses look silly, but I have to confess that I kissed my fingers and touched the stone. No lipstick though. Just to say thank you to a great man for the lessons I have learned from him since I was twelve, old enough to legally pick up a copy of his Portrait of Dorian Gray from our school library.

 

Photography tip of the day: When travelling, take several 4Gb memory cards with you rather than one 32Gb. If your only memory card gets corrupted, you lose all your images

. Have a great day!