How much time to allow for Père Lachaise Cemetery?
 

Getting down to the nitty gritty of our trip to France Tuesday. I am hoping to do the 2:30 Paris Walks tour of Marais on Sunday. Would I have enough time to visit Pere Lachaise Cemetery in the morning? We are staying in the 7th.
Thanks,
Laurie

We spent about 1/2 day at PL

((I))

A morning will be enough, but if you can find the graves you are looking for, you are better at it than I am.

Some need an eternity.

As Tarquin pointed out, it is often like a treasure hunt to find whom you are looking for.

Is there a listing of all buried there ? Perhaps on a computer in the office ? Had a friend who was buried there in the 60s and would like to visit her grave.

You can buy maps, at least at the main entrance. It's still a bit of a chore locating some of the graves.

You can be in and out in an hour or spend all day - up to you, and your navigational skills.

Often there is someone selling maps out front the entrance or get them at the office as St-Cirq says. You can easily find the most popular tomb there - that of Jim Morrison of the Doors fame who died in Paris of a heart attack - his grave is controversial because it attracts his fans who drink there, put empty booze bottles on his tomb and graffiti his and other graves - every time I've been there there are young folks partying - another most popular grave is of Oscar Wilde over which girls go wild in caressing his seemingly erect penis under this pants of his body replicated in metal on top of his tomb. The most sobering site for me was the wall of martyrs of folks executed by authorities during the Paris Commune, if i recall correctly.

How much time - can't see spending more than a few hours here for the typical person but a great few hours it tis.

http://www.pere-lachaise.com/perelachaise.php

I think that everybody has a different interest in Père Lachaise -- some people want to hunt for a certain number of the innumerable famous tombs, others are there to admire the funerary art and plenty of other just like to wander around at random -- and some people want to combine all three.

So some people will find half an hour to be enough and others will find half a day to be insufficient.

I'd say at least 2 hours plus time getting there and to your walking tour so you would have plenty of time in the morning.

Maps are free!

There used to be a charge for them but they are now free at the visitor's center. If you take the Pere Lachaise metro stop walk across the street to the cemetery. You'll see a high stone wall. Walk along the wall (either inside the cemetery or on the street) until you come to the main entrance and the visitor's center. This is where you get the maps.

Thanks, everyone. Sounds like I should have enough time. I don't need to see the entire cemetery. I'll just browse with my map and see what I can see in the time I have.

Laurie

An hour or two is fine, it's just a cemetery. If you don't even have any particular reason for going there but that you've heard of it as a tourist attraction, you'll have plenty of time.

And the cemetery is very hilly - can be more tiring than think walking about - plan you journey thru this maze-like place carefully!

There are warnings about people wanting to take you on tours through the cemetery. Once you pick up a map sometimes they just sort of tag along and tell you where things are. We had this happen to us, but we made a deal with the guy and for $20 euro (there were 4 of us,so $5 euro each)he shared history on many of the graves and took us to the more famous ones. He reminded us of a little elf,the way he flitted from grave to grave. He would lead us through an area and then sort of popup behind a tombstone. That sounds disrespectful and he was not. He was just very animated.

It might have been a tourist trap for some, but for us, we really enjoyed the details he gave, and we talk about him whenever we reminisce about our trips to Paris.

We spent 90 minutes there.

((H))