"Bring out your dead!"

And the reply came back, "I'm not dead yet!", from the famous movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  If you haven't seen this classic from the 1970s, you should.  It ranks (in my mind) as one of the best comedies ever made, right up there with Animal House, Stripes, Blazing Saddles, and The Big Lebowski (among others).  And the first half of our Wednesday, 4/2/25, was spent among the dead at Pere Lachaise, the largest cemetery in Paris with more than 3.5M visitors each year,

The list is nearly endless of famous people buried here.  This includes many famous figures in the arts, including Honoré de Balzac, Sarah Bernhardt, Frédéric Chopin, Olivia de Havilland, Marcel Marceau,  Marcel Marceau, Amedeo Modigliani, Molière, Édith Piaf, Marcel Proust, Gertrude Stein, Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, and many other famous philosophers, scientists, and historical figures.  The cemetery opened in 1804,and takes its name from the confessor to Louis XIV (the Sun King), Pere Francois de la Chaise (1624–1709).

It was a beautiful, sunny day (as has been the case almost every day in the twelve days we've been here so far.  We had the good fortune of selecting an English-speaking guide, Max from Scotland, who had story after story about the famous people buried there.  They ranged from the most well known people (e.g., Jim Morrison) to those you've never heard of but had some interesting slice of life.

One thing very interesting about Pere Lachaise is that it is a completely secular cemetery where Catholics, Jews, Protestants, and Muslims are all buried . . . often side by side.  France is a very communal country - liberty, fraternity, and equality - words that show up everywhere as France was one of the earliest of countries promoting those concepts and human rights.  That piece of equality of this cemetery, frankly, makes it pretty unique in the world.  Additionally, it features several large monuments to victims of specific concentration camps and other genocides from around the world that touched France for better or, occasionally, worse (e.g., Rwanda).

Of course I was particularly interested in the Jim Morrison grave, having visited it when we were here in 2009.  It was far more tucked away than I had remembered, and was now surrounded by a thick plastic barrier although there were still tributes of cigarettes, alcohol, and chewing gum on the concrete berm to his grave.  And, the adjacent tree was literally covered with wads of chewing gum - something Jim Morrison apparently favored.  Dead at 27 from heart failure, he was entitled to burial here because he had been living in France near the Bastille here in Paris.  And, because there was no autopsy performed, the controversy remains about his mysterious death.

After our 2.5 hour visit there, we collectively stopped at a brasserie for some refreshment before parting ways.  Cheryl and I were pretty wiped out from the uneven cobblestones of the cemetery and its up and down hills, and uber'ed back to the apartment to prepare for the evening.  That was a "romantic dinner cruise" on the Seine as our group of 6 that left from a dock at the Pont (bridge) de Bir-Hakeim near the Eiffel Tower.

At 8 p.m. we arrived and met the other four, and boarded the Capitaine Fracasse with about 200 other "romantics".  We settled into a lovely three course meal featuring an appetizer of salmon, foie gras, and some other little square of unidentifiable rice-like stuff, and then a main course of sea bass (for me and chicken for Cheryl), and finally a dessert of cherry tart (for Cheryl and a chocolate one for me).  

Our nephew, Ray, is happy to finish whatever food is left and, with my limited eating capabilities, I was only too happy to indulge him.  Quite frankly, it is a lot like eating with Cheryl's late father, (also) Ray who was the best eater I've ever known.  On the day before his passing, he was scarfing down chili dogs from Skyline and singing "Anchors Away".  When men were men and his namesake, our nephew Ray, can also handle the best in eating.  It is absolutely charming.

Home about midnight (when have I seen that time of day last?) and a good night sleep before Thursday's activities.  At noon, we're meeting Jeff and Leigh at Chalete des Iles Landing on the northwest side of Paris for a lunch on a very scenic lake and its accompanying park which Jeff reports is very much like Central Park.  Then, tonight, we're having dinner near La Opera Garnier before seeing an opera called Il Vaggio about Dante's Inferno.   With his nearly 20 years working at the Met in New York, he's particularly excited about it, so we are too.

More tomorrow after, borrowing the Marx Brothers movie title, a night at the opera.