Paris Private Père Lachaise Cemetery Tour with Iconic Graves｜France

Meet your guide at the entrance of Père Lachaise Cemetery and begin your 2.5-hour walking tour. Stroll through the peaceful, cobblestone lanes of graves and learn about the many famous people who are buried here.

Hear about how, due to the overcrowding of cemeteries in central Paris, many graveyards had been dug up and closed down during the 18th century. The remains of the dead were taken underground to the Paris catacombs. To prevent the smell, hygiene problems, and overcrowding again, Napoleon Bonaparte created Père Lachaise Cemetery – on a beautiful hill that had been a monastery and vineyard, where lived the priest Father la Chaise. It is situated well away from the city center in the 20th arrondissement – which at the time was less than fashionable.

Because of its location, he had to find a way to encourage Parisians to want to be buried here. So, he had the remains of some famous French people exhumed and reburied: Moliere the playwright, La Fontaine – the writer of fables, Parmentier – the scientist who made famous the humble potato, and the iconic medieval lovers: Heloise and Abelard, real-life French Romeo and Juliet! It worked. People wanted to be buried next to these famous people – it was like wanting to be buried next to Shakespeare in England or Elvis Presley in America. And so the cemetery grew and grew.

Today it is still an active cemetery with over 70,000 burials. You’ll see lots of graves of famous people, and if you have any particular must-sees, please feel free to ask your guide to take you there. Out of the huge number of luminaries buried at Pere Lachaise you may see the graves of Gericho, Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas, Edith Piaf, Chopin, Oscar Wilde, Balzac, the somewhat infamous tomb of Victor Noir, and of course the most famous grave in the whole place, Jim Morrison of the Doors.