Pere LaChaise Cemetary (May 1)

First of all - happy May 1!  Lily of the valley are given to people to celebrate the day and for good luck.  They were for sale everywhere - and I mean everywhere!  Chocolate shops had fake (faux!) ones

along with some chocolate of course

and all over the place makeshift tables were full of them.

Being a public holiday I thought everything would be quiet - not so!  When I got out at Pere LaChaise to go to the cemetary, I found a flea market

and the cemetary was full of visitors also.  As usual, I had a map but couldn't really get my head around it.  So I figured I'd wander and find what I was looking for.  It's kind of freeing to wander - you see the unexpected or interesting because your mind is more open I feel...You can easily guess this person was a sculptor during his lifetime and I think this is more meaningful than a stock standard headstone.

A bench with its back to the cemetary, looking out to the street.

 So many of the family plots had what looked like houses marking the spot

 or church-like structures

 with stained glass.(you can just see it on the back wall)

 Weathered and returning to the elements

 A door ajar - in welcome?

Headstones and crypts are all meant to make the impermanent permanent - we want to hang on to the idea that people we care about are still here.  Nothing is permanent, stone and metal weathers and decays too

 yet amongst it all life always bursts forth.

My pilgrammage was to Chopin's tomb.  The jostling, tramping, loudly chatting crowds were annoying

but then they turned out to be just what I needed.  I tagged on to a Polish-sounding tour group once I heard one of them say "Chopin".

As it happens, this is one of the most visited tombs in the cemetary, and apparently constantly has fresh flowers lining the front.  An apt name for the road leading out of the cemetary.

 And this was just across the street.