Montmartre Cemetery

Some 3,5 years ago when I just had started my previous Paris blog I made some modest posts about the Montmartre Cemetery and some specific tombs. I will revert to this in a coming post. In the meantime, I thought I should make a more general post about this cemetery, which is one of the major ones created in the early 19th century, when it had been decided that for sanitary reasons the cemeteries should be outside the Paris centre. Actually they became part of the city again when the “villages”, like Montmartre, were incorporated 1860. The other major Paris cemeteries are the Père-Lachaise, the Montparnasse, the Batignolles and the Passy cemeteries on which I have already posted.

The Montmartre Cemetery which got its place on an old quarry opened in 1825.

One specificity is the bridge from 1888 which runs over it.

The Montmartre Cemetery is slightly smaller than the Père-Lachaise and the Montparnasse cemeteries, but holds anyhow some 20 thousand graves. The atmosphere is very similar to the Père-Lachaise one and if you like cemeteries it’s certainly worth a visit.

Here are some general views and some “details”.

I looked through the doors of some cenotaphs.

As you can guess from some of the above photos, the sky changed aspect during the afternoon I spent there. At a certain moment, there was a brief “snow storm” … too early for the season.

Also the cats like this cemetery.