Just Another Day in Paris

Our day started yesterday at Blé Sucré, an adorable French bakery with croissants rated the best in Paris! Just before arriving at the bakery I met up with a friend, Chrissy, who is spending a couple weeks in Paris. I actually wasn't hungry at the time (I ate on the train) but Chrissy insisted on buying me a pain au choclat (chocolate croissant) to save and eat later. We continued on to Marché d'Aligre, both an open air and covered market. It was crowed to say the least! It was easy to see why with the vendors selling everything from cheese to flowers to exotic fruit. You can't imagine the colors and smells! The vendors would cut open some of their fruit to offer to potential buyers and as I walked through my nose was greeted with the smells of fresh oranges and mangos and grapefruit. There was also the not as pleasant smells of fresh seafood and cut red meat. While walking around, we also stopped at a chocolate shop to pick up some ganache. I decide to try a pear, a cherry, and a red fruit ganache. Probably some of the best chocolate I've ever had!

Most of our day, though, was spent at Père Lachaise. I am embarrassed to admit I didn't know what Père Lachaise was at first. I soon learned that it is a beautiful cemetery in Paris. It is also HUGE (over 100 acres). Luckily Chrissy had been there before and had an app showing where people's graves are located. If not for her and her app, I could have wandered around this cemetery and never found anything. As you walk in you are greeted by the momument entitled Aux Morts (The Dead). We both remarked on the fact that this cemetery, while beautiful, is also quiet depressing. The graves are adorning with weeping women, like there is no life after death. This monument is no exception to this fact.

Top: Jim Morrison, Chopin, Gertrude Stein Bottom: Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf 

We continued on the grave of Jim Morrison. Unlike the graves surrounding his tombstone, Jim Morrison's resting place is enclosed my a fence. And both the fence and the grave are adorned with mementos left by fans and admirers. To the point that the cemetery has thought of expelling him because of these disruptions. For now, a fence is protecting the tombstone. We then headed to see Oscar Wilde's burial sight. His tombstone also had to be protected from adoring fans. Instead of a fence, though, Wilde's tomb is surrounded by plexiglass to prevent people from putting on lipstick and kissing his grave. From there we decided to try to find the resting place of Gertrude Stein. After walking around the area in which we were supposed to find her, we found an unofficial guide leading a couple to the correct spot. While the guide was an incredibly strange man, he taught us that Alice B Toklas, Stein's lover, is buried with Gertrude Stein but because both names were not allowed on the front, Alice's name appears on the back of the headstone. While admiring the sculptures on people's graves, we walked to find the famous French musician Edith Piaf. All we really had to do to find her was to look were a large group was crowded and we found her. She is buried with her last husband and her father. 

Hungry from all the walking, Chrissy and I made our way to Le Dôme cafe. A restaurant once frequented by F Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemmingway and Henry Miller. Being a fan of these authors and a lover of the 1920s, I was ecstatic to eat in the same place as a few of my literary heros. And of course I imagined that I was sitting in the exact place as some of the Greats.