Probably the most fascinating cemetery around, you can get a map from the newsstand across the entrance to Pere-Lachaise. From there, pay homage to some of the most famous--and infamous--people in the world.

The "grandest address in Paris" is home to writer Oscar Wilde, actress Sarah Bernhardt, and Maria Callas, just to name a few. This is reputed to be one of the most haunted spots in Paris as well; Colette is said to come here to replenish the red roses that are regularly left on the black marble slab that marks her grave. Marcel Proust and Maurice Ravel have been seen here from time to time; their ghostly figures forever searching for each other, as their families would not allow the lovers to be buried together, refusing the final request of Proust.

There are many other lovers and loved buried at Pere-Lachaise. The truly immortal Jim Morrison of the doors is still buried here, even though the Paris government wanted to move him after his lease was up--the vandalism and graffiti from adoring fans was mucking up the surrounding stones. 12th century lovers Abelard and Heloise are finally together forever here at the cemetery, and Isadora Duncan rests in the Columbarium, cremated and filed away. The famous stone of Gertrude Stein is here, complete with "Alice B. Toklas" engraved on the other side.

The cemetery covers over 100 acres so a traveler could easily spend the day--or two days--visiting the exquisite statues and monuments, each with their own stories. Here among the loved artists and actors of the centuries you will also find sad memorials to the concentration camp victims, their graves marked only by the monuments, their bodies long gone and never to set foot on their homeland soil again. When the last fighters of the Commune--the anarchist resistence-- were ambushed and lined up to be shot here, some escaped and hid out among the tombstones, venturing into the city only at night to search for food.