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Paris (20th arrondissement)

, France

Père-Lachaise Cemetery

871

Walk among Paris’s poets, artists, rebels, and lovers in the world’s most visited cemetery, an open-air museum too rich to absorb in a single afternoon.

Famous graves

Sculpture

History

TT field rating

4.7 / 5

Time needed

2–3 hours

Access

Free entry for an ordinary individual visit; no ticket or booking needed. Independently arranged tours have separate charges. Source: https://www.paris.fr/pages/cimetiere-du-pere-lachaise-informations-17576

Terrain

Hillside site

Established

1804

Know Before You Go

Quick Tips

The things you’d text a friend to ask. Tap any one for the honest detail.

Hours

16 March–5 November: Mon–Fri 8am–6pm, Sat 8.30am–6pm, Sun/holidays 9am–6pm. 6 November–15 March: same opening times, closing at 5.30pm. Last entry and evacuation begin 15 minutes before closing. Check temporary closures before travelling. Source: https://www.paris.fr/lieux/cimetiere-du-pere-lachaise-4080

Admission

Free entry for an ordinary individual visit; no ticket or booking needed. Independently arranged tours have separate charges. Source: https://www.paris.fr/pages/cimetiere-du-pere-lachaise-informations-17576

Bathrooms

yes

yes

Photos

yes

yes

Dogs

service_animals_only

service_animals_only

Getting there

Use Philippe Auguste for the main entrance, or Gambetta for the upper gate. Check the city’s gate-by-gate directions and current access notices. General visitor parking is not available inside; vehicle entry is restricted. Bicycles and scooters are prohibited, even pushed. Source: https://www.paris.fr/lieux/cimetiere-du-pere-lachaise-4080

Food & drink

No picnics or alcohol. Plan your food break outside the cemetery and leave no litter. Source: https://cdn.paris.fr/paris/2022/03/09/25e6f25e06bf64607af3e34000aeec5f.pdf

Accessibility

Partial access. Uneven cobbles, slopes and narrow paths can make parts of the cemetery difficult to reach. Amandiers and Réunion gates have steps; use the city’s access information to plan your entrance. Source: https://www.paris.fr/lieux/cimetiere-du-pere-lachaise-4080

What to bring

TT advice: wear comfortable shoes suitable for uneven paths, dress for the weather and save a cemetery map before exploring. Source: https://www.paris.fr/pages/cimetiere-du-pere-lachaise-informations-17576

Before you go. Tap a tile above for the honest detail.

Through my lens

A wander through Père-Lachaise Cemetery

Quiet avenues, remarkable sculpture, and the details that made me stop. Photographs from my visit.

Weathered family mausoleum with wrought-iron gate, Père-Lachaise Cemetery, Paris

Photo: Dominic Brown

Dominic Brown

Photo: Dominic Brown

Dominic Brown

pere-lachaise-oscar-wilde-inscription-crop

Photo: Dominic Brown

Dominic Brown

Two bronze figures above a carved skull on a family monument at Père-Lachaise Cemetery, Paris

A row of chapel tombs in black and white at Père-Lachaise Cemetery, Paris

A moss-flecked stone figure resting his head in his hand at Père-Lachaise Cemetery, Paris

A verdigris bronze shepherd figure with a crook and lambs at Père-Lachaise Cemetery, Paris

A bronze figure in a carved Gothic niche above a family tomb at Père-Lachaise Cemetery, Paris

A verdigris bronze woman sitting with her head in her hand at Père-Lachaise Cemetery, Paris

A white marble figure asleep on a draped tomb at Père-Lachaise Cemetery, Paris

A weathered bronze portrait relief resting on a granite grave at Père-Lachaise Cemetery, Paris

A stone figure lying draped across a tomb at Père-Lachaise Cemetery, Paris

Swipe for more photographs. Tap to enlarge.

First, the story

A stroll through history in

Père-Lachaise Cemetery

Père-Lachaise is best known as the resting place of an extraordinary roll-call of artists and writers (Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, Frédéric Chopin, Édith Piaf, Marcel Proust) and as one of the world's great galleries of 19th-century funerary sculpture. Top reasons to go: The sheer density of famous graves; the quality and variety of the monuments, from neo-Gothic canopies to draped mourning figures; the layered history, including the Paris Commune; the wooded, melancholic atmosphere that feels worlds away from the city outside; and the fact that it is entirely free to enter. It will reward anyone who loves history, sculpture, literature, or simply atmospheric walking. It is less suited to visitors who need flat, even, fully accessible paths, or those expecting a quick in-and-out stop, because it is large, hilly, and easy to lose your bearings in.

What I wish I did different:

I severely underestimated how much time I needed and made the mistake of visiting too close to sunset, which cut my exploration short. To truly appreciate this place without feeling rushed, you absolutely have to give yourself a wide, generous window of daylight.

Did you know?

Tell me another

✿

© Tombstone Tourism field visit

A book offering a picturesque and sentimental tour of Père-Lachaise was published in Paris in 1808, only four years after the cemetery opened.

Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart planned a monumental pyramid for the top of the hill. It was never built, and the cemetery chapel later occupied the site.

Père-Lachaise pioneered several French funerary firsts: the first crematorium, the first columbarium, and the first French memorial garden for cremated remains.

Père-Lachaise is an urban ecosystem, not only a cemetery. The City of Paris recorded 62 bird species on the site from 2010 to 2020, alongside foxes, bats, hedgehogs, and a resident bee colony.

Where Paris lays its poets, lovers, and revolutionaries beneath a canopy of old trees.

Tombstone Tourism · field visit

Who rests here

Famous Graves

Tap a card for the story, and one thing we’d tell you before you go find them.

Oscar Wilde

Writer & poet

1854–1900

Division 89

Striking Epstein angel sculpture behind a glass barrier; a pilgrimage site

Oscar Wilde, the Irish playwright and wit behind The Importance of Being Earnest and The Picture of Dorian Gray, died in Paris in 1900. His tomb is crowned by Jacob Epstein's bold modernist flying angel, once so covered in admirers' lipstick that a glass barrier was added in 2011 to protect the stone. It remains one of the cemetery's most visited graves.

About 10 min from the main entrance

Epstein's flying-angel monument and the lipstick-kiss ritual now behind glass.

Jim Morrison

Singer & poet, The Doors

1943–1971

Division 6

The cemetery's most-visited grave; fenced after years of tributes and vandalism

Jim Morrison, the American frontman of The Doors, died in Paris in 1971 at the age of 27 and was buried at Pere-Lachaise, where his modest grave became an unlikely place of pilgrimage. For years fans left graffiti, bottles, and cigarettes, and a barrier and guard now hold the crowds back. The bust that once marked the plot was stolen in 1988. It remains the cemetery's most-visited modern grave.

About 5 min from the eastern gate

The 27 Club pilgrimage site, still guarded against the crowds it draws.

Frédéric Chopin

Composer & pianist

1810–1849

Division 11

Muse sculpture; consistently flower-covered

Frederic Chopin, the Polish-French composer who made the piano sing, died in Paris at 39 and lies beneath a marble monument of Euterpe, muse of music, weeping over a broken lyre. But his grave holds only part of him: at his dying request his heart was removed, smuggled past Russian border guards in a jar of cognac, and sealed into a pillar of the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw so that part of him could return to a Poland he never saw free. Polish visitors still leave soil and flowers here.

About 7 min from the main entrance

Euterpe weeps over his grave, but his heart rests in Warsaw, smuggled home in cognac.

Édith Piaf

Singer, "La Vie en rose"

1915–1963

Division 97

Family tomb marked "Famille Gassion-Piaf"

Edith Piaf, France's beloved chanteuse and the voice of "La Vie en rose" and "Non, je ne regrette rien," was buried at Pere-Lachaise in 1963. Her simple black granite family grave, shared with her father and her young daughter, is almost always marked by fresh flowers left by admirers. Tens of thousands lined the streets of Paris for her funeral procession.

About 12 min from the main entrance

The nation's chanteuse, her black granite grave rarely without fresh flowers.

TT_France_Paris_Pere20-Division_21-Marceau_07

Marcel Marceau

Mime artist, "Bip"

1923–2007

Division 21

The master of silence who used mime to save Jewish children in the Resistance.

Marcel Marceau, the world's greatest mime, turned silence into a universal language for more than sixty years through his white-faced everyman Bip, in a battered top hat and a red flower. Born Marcel Mangel to a Jewish family in Strasbourg, he lost his father at Auschwitz and joined the French Resistance, where he first used mime to keep smuggled Jewish children calm and quiet as he led them across the Alps to safety in Switzerland. He performed almost to the end of his life and rests in Division 21.

About 10 min from the main entrance

The master of silence who used mime to save Jewish children in the Resistance.

Allan Kardec

Founder of Spiritism

1804–1869

Division 44

Dolmen tomb, heavily visited

Allan Kardec, the French educator who codified Spiritism, rests beneath a dolmen-style tomb of rough-hewn stone. It is often called the most-visited grave in the cemetery: pilgrims from around the world, many from Brazil, keep it deep in fresh flowers year-round, and tradition holds that touching the bust's shoulder while making a wish brings it back granted.

About 8 min from the main entrance

The dolmen tomb of Spiritism's founder, kept deep in fresh flowers by pilgrims.

Tomb of Héloïse and Abélard, Père-Lachaise Cemetery, Paris

Héloïse & Abélard

Medieval lovers & scholars

d. 1142 & 1164

Division 7

Restoration notice: monument not visible; reopening expected August 2027

Before you go: this monument is not currently visible during restoration. The City of Paris expects it to be visible again in August 2027 (checked 25 October 2026). Heloise and Abelard, the 12th-century philosopher and his brilliant student whose forbidden love and lifelong letters became legend, were moved here in 1817 in the same prestige campaign that brought Moliere. Their neo-Gothic canopy tomb, assembled from fragments of the Paraclete oratory Abelard founded, made Pere-Lachaise fashionable, and lovers have left letters at its rail for two centuries.

About 5 min from the main entrance

Paris's original love pilgrimage: two centuries of letters left at the Gothic canopy.

Marcel Proust

Novelist, In Search of Lost Time

1871–1922

Division 85

Simple black family tomb, often sought out

Marcel Proust, author of the monumental In Search of Lost Time, rests in his family's polished black marble tomb at Pere-Lachaise. Understated beside the cemetery's grander monuments, the flat slab is often marked by a single flower or a metro ticket left by literary pilgrims. Proust spent his final years writing in a cork-lined room to shut out the noise of the world.

About 10 min from the main entrance

The author of In Search of Lost Time, in an understated black marble family tomb.

Sarah Bernhardt

Actress, "The Divine Sarah"

1844–1923

Division 44

Legendary stage actress

Sarah Bernhardt, the stage's first global superstar, played Hamlet, toured the world, and kept acting after losing a leg. When she died in 1923 an estimated crowd of hundreds of thousands lined the streets to follow her coffin here. Her granite tomb carries only her name: a plain stone for the least plain woman of her age.

About 8 min from the main entrance

The Divine Sarah: the stage's first global superstar under a single-name stone.

Colette

Novelist

1873–1954

Division 4

Major French literary figure

Colette, author of Gigi and the Claudine novels, scandalized and then conquered France: music-hall performer, journalist, and finally a national icon. Denied a Catholic funeral by the Church, she became the first French woman honored with a state funeral, and her simple black-and-rose granite tomb near the entrance still draws readers who leave flowers for her.

About 4 min from the main entrance

The first Frenchwoman given a state funeral, resting just inside the gates.

Amedeo Modigliani

Painter & sculptor

1884–1920

Division 96

Painter of the École de Paris

Amedeo Modigliani, the Italian painter of long-necked portraits, died penniless of tubercular meningitis at 35, just as collectors began to notice. His muse Jeanne Hebuterne, nine months pregnant, took her own life the next day; years later her family allowed her to be moved beside him. Their shared stone reads that death took him at the moment of glory.

About 12 min from the main entrance

The bohemian painter beside Jeanne Hebuterne, the muse who followed him in death.

Molière

Playwright & actor

1622–1673

Division 25

Transferred in 1817 to boost the cemetery's prestige; paired with La Fontaine

Moliere, the father of French comedy behind Tartuffe and The Misanthrope, was reburied at Pere-Lachaise in 1817, more than a century after his death. His transfer here, alongside the fabulist La Fontaine, was a deliberate move to lend the young cemetery prestige and encourage Parisians to buy plots. His stone sarcophagus rests raised on a pedestal, one of the oldest monuments on the grounds.

About 8 min from the main entrance

The father of French comedy, moved here in 1817 to give the young cemetery prestige.

Map and walk

Walk the Path

Start at

Porte Gambetta

48.863384

1.5

Moderate

downhill-leaning

75 to 90

Downhill-leaning overall, but not flat or step-free. Cobbled and paved avenues plus narrow, uneven gravel and dirt paths between graves. Expect short climbs, curbs and occasional steps, slippery in wet weather. Wear sturdy closed-toe shoes. Not a verified step-free route.

2.397162

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/?api=1&origin=48.863384,2.397162&destination=48.860130,2.392820&waypoints=48.861802,2.397963%7C48.859683,2.398894%7C48.859278,2.393750%7C48.859208,2.391892&travelmode=walking

55-57 rue des Rondeaux, 75020 Paris

Starting here puts you at the top of the hill, so the walk runs downhill rather than up from the lower gates. It is also one of only three entrances with a wheelchair-accessible public toilet.

Oscar Wilde

Winged Epstein angel behind glass

Division 89

230 m from the entrance

48.861802

869

Wilde

Inscription carved into Oscar Wilde's tomb, Père-Lachaise Cemetery, Paris

2.397963

Édith Piaf

Simple black Gassion-Piaf family stone, often with flowers

Division 97

280 m from Wilde

48.859683

877

Piaf

Édith Piaf family tomb marked Famille Gassion-Piaf, Père-Lachaise Cemetery, Paris

2.398894

Jim Morrison

Modest stone behind a barrier, usually the busiest spot

Division 6

550 m from Piaf

48.859278

868

Morrison

Jim Morrison's grave, Père-Lachaise Cemetery, Paris

2.393750

Héloïse and Abélard

Neo-Gothic canopy tomb built from Paraclete fragments

Division 7

290 m from Morrison

48.859208

883

Héloïse

Tomb of Héloïse and Abélard, Père-Lachaise Cemetery, Paris

2.391892

Frédéric Chopin

Muse sculpture, almost always covered in fresh flowers

Division 11

190 m from Héloïse and Abélard

48.860130

1239

Chopin

Frédéric Chopin's grave, Père-Lachaise Cemetery, Paris

2.392820

Google puts the walking itself at about 21 minutes. The rest is finding monuments in dense rows, reading inscriptions, taking photographs and waiting your turn at Morrison.

Entrance address and coordinates published by the City of Paris. All five divisions confirmed against the City of Paris personality map. Grave pins come from open mapping data and await field verification. Distance and duration are an estimated walking route.

Map and walk

Walk the Path

Indicative line. Follow the paved avenues.

Start hereOfficial verified coordinates

Open the route in Google Maps

Terrain.

On timing.

The deeper story

Why this cemetery changed Paris

Père-Lachaise was established in 1804 as Paris's first large municipal cemetery and the first garden cemetery, part of a wave of new burial grounds (with Montmartre, Montparnasse, and Passy) created after central churchyards were closed for public-health reasons. It was laid out by architect Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart in an English-garden style and developed under prefect Nicolas Frochot. The site takes its name from Father François d'Aix de La Chaise, confessor to Louis XIV, whose Jesuit house once stood on the hill.

Shunned at first as too far from the city and not consecrated, the cemetery was popularized by a deliberate marketing campaign: in 1817 the remains of Molière, La Fontaine, and the medieval lovers Héloïse and Abélard were transferred in with great fanfare, and burials grew from a handful to roughly 33,000 within a couple of decades. In May 1871, during the "Bloody Week" that ended the Paris Commune, fighting reached the cemetery; 147 captured Communards were shot against the eastern wall, which became the Mur des Fédérés (Division 76), now a major left-wing memorial site classified as a historic monument. Most pre-1900 monuments in the old divisions are listed as historic monuments. The cemetery represents an exceptionally broad range of communities and disciplines, and it holds three World War I memorials.

Père-Lachaise, c. 1900.

Photograph by Eugène Atget. Bibliothèque nationale de France, via Wikimedia Commons.

A detail worth slowing down for · © Tombstone Tourism field visit

Reading the stones

A Language Carved in Stone.

Every symbol was chosen to outlive the person who grieved. Once you learn to read them, the entire cemetery starts to speak.

Mourning figure

Grief itself, personified: a draped woman collapsed over a tomb.

Draped over sarcophagi, urns and the grander family tombs.

Tombstone Tourism field visit

Draped funerary urn monument at South Side Cemetery

Draped urn

Mourning; the cloth is the veil drawn between life and death.

Crowning columns, pedestals and neoclassical tombs.

Cbaile19, Wikimedia Commons

Broken column

A life cut short, often someone who died young or in their prime.

Tall family monuments.

Tombstone Tourism field visit

Ivy-covered tomb at Père-Lachaise Cemetery

Ivy

Fidelity and friendship that holds on; evergreen, so undying life.

Twining up crosses, columns and older stones.

Tombstone Tourism field visit

Laurel wreath

Distinction and immortality; victory in art, arms or letters.

Encircling names on notable tombs.

Tombstone Tourism field visit

Tap a symbol to read what it says. A fuller field guide is on the way.

Volunteer opportunities

Help preserve Père-Lachaise Cemetery

These places endure because people look after them. Start with the groups who know this ground best, and leave the repairs to those trained to make them.

How you can help

Local preservation organizations

Clean-up and documentation events

Keep exploring

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Explore an underground ossuary in former quarries, beneath the streets of Paris.

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Coming soon

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Stay in the loop

Come Visit Cemeteries With Us

Let’s explore the world’s historic grounds together.

Cemeteries are more than just places of grief. They are open-air museums, quiet landscapes, and forgotten corners of history waiting to be walked. We share new field guides, notes from the road, and the detours worth taking.

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How we know this

Information confidence:

High

We visit where we can, cross-check the practical details against official sources, and tell you plainly when something is unconfirmed. Spotted an error or know this place well? Let us know and we will put it right.

Last verified

June 12, 2026