Visiting Jim Morrison's Grave

     Our Paris hotel was a few blocks away from the Père Lachaise Cemetery, the place where the Doors' lead singer, Jim Morrison, is buried.  Mike and I couldn't resist going to visit another dead celebrity.
     There are many famous people buried at Père Lachaise - Fédéric Chopin, Colette, Oscar Wilde, Camille Pissarro, and Molière - to name a few.  Père Lachaise is the largest cemetery in Paris (110 acres) and is the first garden cemetery and the first municipal cemetery in the city.  If your goal is only to visit Morrison's grave, just follow the crowd (most of them English speaking Americans).  If you want to visit other celebrities, you must take a map.  The grave sites are crowded and the paths wind quite a bit.  No one is easy to find.

The Address - 16 Street of Rest  

The cemetery is leafy and quiet.  However, it is not "manicured."  Some places are down right overgrown.

Some of the mausoleums from the 1800s have fallen into a state of disrepair.  The wooden doors are often termite eaten or rotted away.  Stained glass windows are frequently broken.

This tomb is broken open.

There is a beautiful view.

Rising from the dead and ascending into heaven is a comforting belief, but I find this monument just a little creepy. 

This is Jim Morrison's grave.  We watched one pilgrim toss an unlit cigarette into the pile of flowers.  Then he inserted his earbuds, pulled out another cigarette, lit up, and apparently shared a smoke with his idol.  Morrison died in 1971, but he didn't have a headstone until 1981.  The grave was renovated, and a new headstone was installed in 1990.  The inscription on the plaque reads, "James Douglas Morrison, 1943-1971, Kata Ton ⌂aimona Eaytoy."  Translation: according to his own daemon interpreted as true to his own spirit.  The true cause of Morrison's death is unknown, though drug abuse has been suggested as the cause.  His personal physician declared the cause of death to be heart failure, so no autopsy was required under French law. 

There has been so much vandalism over the years that cemetery officials have erected barricades to keep visitors at a respectable distance.  During the years between 1971 and 1981, when there was no grave cover or headstone, some worshipers of the occult even tried to dig up the body.  The tree trunk was wrapped because fans covered it in chewing gum - a strange tribute that likely comes from a desire to thumb ones nose at authority.