Père Lachaise Cemetery

This is the most visited cemetery in the world, and it has better residents than most cities. Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, Édith Piaf, Frédéric Chopin, Marcel Proust, Molière, Balzac, Gertrude Stein, Maria Callas — the roll call reads like a fever dream of Western culture crammed into 44 hectares.

When it opened in 1804, nobody wanted to be buried here. It was too far from the city center, in what was then the eastern outskirts of Paris. So the administrators pulled a brilliant marketing stunt: they transferred the remains of Molière and La Fontaine to the cemetery, and suddenly everyone wanted in. Within a few years, Père Lachaise was the most fashionable place to spend eternity.

Jim Morrison's grave is still the most visited, and it's become a strange pilgrimage site covered in graffiti, lipstick kisses, and the occasional offering of whiskey. Security guards patrol it full-time. Oscar Wilde's tomb, designed by Jacob Epstein and featuring a massive Art Deco angel, used to be covered in lipstick kisses too, until a glass barrier was installed in 2011 because the grease was damaging the stone.

The cemetery is also a memorial to darker history. The Mur des Fédérés — the Communards' Wall — at the eastern edge marks the spot where 147 survivors of the 1871 Paris Commune were lined up and shot by government forces. It became a pilgrimage site for the French left, and demonstrations are still held there every year. Hidden throughout the grounds are also memorials to French resistance fighters, Holocaust victims, and those who died in Nazi concentration camps.