Carol Forest

Cimetière du Père-Lachaise. “one of the most famous cemeteries in the world”. Can cemetery be famous?

 

I’m not sure but it’s surely “happening”. It’s as many tourists there as on Champs Elysees, one that is full of life and the deads. Cemetary, something I’d never like to go, who would really if not to see our beloved ones?  It only gives me complicated feelings and nothing much more than that.   

 

Turning into a tourist in Paris, I somehow found myself in  Cimetière du Père-Lachaise today.  This is a place you won’t visit when you live in Paris.  Well, at least it was for me.

However, it’s surprisingly a very beautiful cemetery with over 300,000 bodies buried there.  You need a map of it to find those you like to pay a visit.   People I visited were: Frédéric Chopin, Édith Piaf, the long missed Jim Morrison,  the most lovely Oscar Wilde and few more.

Wild Mr. Wilde

 

I certainly in love with Oscar Wilde and his grave (commissioned by his lover Robert Ross) the most. 

Had an apple in front of his grave and gave him a kiss (on top of billions of others of cause)

 

 

 

Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish writer, poet, and prominent aesthete. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London’s most popular playwrights in the early 1890. Today he is remembered for his many epigrams, his plays which are still revived, and the tragedy of his imprisonment and early death.  

It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.
The Model Millionaire, 1912

Been fascinated about Morocco for some reasons. Probably dumb reasons to some: it’s North Africa(yup, it’s a big wow to me!), French Moroccan mix, the music, the handicraft, Casablanca (yes yes, I heard is not much there but the movie!) and everything I only heard of but not seen. It’s mysterious.

I never done too much research into Morocco. One of the reason is not to ruin the surprises if I go one day. Another reason is knowing too much how great a person or a place is may not be a good idea sometimes, it may turn out having too much pain when I can’t go for it somehow. (flight to Morocco is way bit expensive from HK and the idea, just the idea of it being so far away). Sometimes, when things seems to be too beautiful, you don’t touch it, it may be dangerously additive.

However, just like what Oscar Wilde said “The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself.”

So here I am, in Morocco.

arriving Marrakesh traveling light

Am at my hotel in Marrakesh by the pool now. It’s my 5^th day here and it’s no doubt been fascinating, yet mysterious. The first thing I saw was a sea of red low-rises.  It’s stunningly beautiful with donkeys, horsey on streets. The city is divided into old and new town. I especially like the old part of it surrounded by red walls, there are so much about Souks (the old part of town) but would like to mention Jardin Majorelle on next post.

This is where  Yves Saint-Laurent and Pierre Bergé, bought over the mansion by this French artist Jacques Majorelle (1886-1962) as well plant collector (well I never know one can actually collect plants as a hobby!) in 1980 and decided to maintain it. After Ysl died in 2008 his ashes were scattered in the Majorelle Garden.