Don’t ya just love Paris package holidays! Well you can book them with us and receive Arrow Tours’ expert care and attention as well as great value. Just select a date with your best-ever-mate and then book your Paris package holidays right here or phone us on 041 983 1177.
You will find many things to do while in Paris on a package holiday and one we recommend which is not obvious but worthy of a visit on a precious citybreak is a trip to a Cemetery that draws visitors in their throngs, getting more than 3.5 million tourists annually and is the most frequented resting place on the planet. So, if it’s a bright dry morning why not take yourselves out to the famous La Cemetière du Père Lachaise located in the 20th arrondissement or borough in the eastern part of the city. More than 1 million people have been buried here to date and it stretches over 110 acres; the list of the internationally famous interred here has given the place the title of ‘the grandest address in Paris’. Its layout is not unlike a town, with streets and intersections on it so be sure to visit their website in advance https://www.paris.fr/dossiers/bienvenue-au-cimetiere-du-pere-lachaise-47 and print off your own map and information. Among its current and most adored residents are:
– Oscar Wilde, who moved to Paris in 1897 died in 1900. A tomb was created by sculptor Jacob Epstein and started out as a 20 tonne block of stone. A tradition that has evolved is that visitors apply red lipstick to themselves and then kiss the stone tomb. Harmless, you would think but the lipstick contains animal fat which over time has damaged the stone.
– Jim Morrison, lead singer of the Doors, died in July 1971 aged 27. Fans leave messages and memorabilia at his grave.
– Frederic Chopin, Polish composer, died 1849. His heart was removed after death and was given in a glass jar to his sister.
– Edith Piaf, France’s most famous female singer and a national treasure. Metro: Père Lachaise
Unlike Irish cemeteries many of the graves here take the form of a kiosk-style tomb.
For lunch pick up a sandwich and a drink in any of the local cafés or head back into the city centre first for the same.
Have you ever seen water gushing from outlets along the kerbstones of Parisienne boulevards? It’s a unique way they have for cleaning the streets – the water, pumped up from the Seine, washes along the street gutter gathering litter, rubbish, discarded cigarette butts and more besides and then disappears down a grate further along. Men with brushes help the water on its way which then goes through the sewer system. Well….the Paris Sewers Museum is in the 7th arrondissement and is worth a visit to see how the whole subterranean city works and is a much cleaner experience than it sounds, otherwise it would not be open to the public. They were greatly modernized and expanded by Hausmann in his gigantic urban renewal program during the mid-nineteenth century and they run to over 2,500 km. The famous French author Victor Hugo devoted a chapter of his novel Les Misérables to the very subject of the Paris sewers. Metro: Alma Marceau © ArrowTours
