I love nature and architecture, so when I think of beauty, I think of these things.
In 2022, I toured Italy with my husband Bob. The first stop was Sorrento where we stayed at Excelsior Vittoria Sorrento, a gorgeous hotel on the Bay of Naples.
I don’t remember what the room looked like, but I remember the large veranda that overlooked a patio of the hotel and the crystal blue water. The patio had lounge chairs and a table and chairs. On each pillar around the edge were pots of red geraniums. Across the water, Mount Vesuvius rose to the sky and the Atlantic Ocean stretched out to the west.
I sat at the little table with my diary and wrote descriptions of the view. It was a magical setting.
One morning we woke up early to take a tour of the Blue Grotto, a cave in the cliffs that was nearby in Capri. When the bus dropped us off at the edge of the cliffs, we climbed down some rickety iron stairs and crawled into little touring boats that were being rowed by husky Italian saliors.
The tide was high that day, so we had to lie down in the boat as we entered the cave’s entrance. Once inside, however, we were surrounded by the most beautiful cobalt blue water, clear and luminous in the light from the cave’s doorway.
The saliors rowed the boats around the interior of the cave and sang to us. Their voices echoed through the halls of the cavern.
My husband and I got to Paris three days before our tour of France was to begin. Our goal was for both of us to overcome jetlag before the tour started and to see parts of Paris not on the tour.
I had been to the Paris catacombs the last time I visited Paris with my daughter. These are underground alleys beneath the city to where thousands of bodies were transferred from cemeteries above ground as Paris expanded. For miles under the city, tourists can walk past bones piled up against the walls in neat displays. Hip bones are in one place, skulls in another.
One place I had never been before, though, was the Pere-Lachaise Cemetery, known for the graves of dozens of famous people from all over the globe. We took a taxi ride to the cemetery’s entrance at 16 Rue de Repos in the 20th Arrondissement, about a half hour ride from our hotel in Bercy.
The entrance was a massive olive-green set of doors framed by wreaths. On both sides, the doors were flanked by two white granite columns topped with the carving of an hour glass circled by angel wings. The doors were open and, inside, we could see several erect tall tree trunks with leafy branches. In-between the trees, blackened marble mausoleums and statues beckoned to us.
I had a map of the cemetery from my Frommer’s Easy Guide to Paris, so I felt well-prepared to find many famous graves including Frédéric Chopin, the renowned Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period who lived half his life in Paris, and Oscar Wilde, the provocative Irish poet and playwright. But since we entered through the main gate, I decided we would start by finding the grave of Camille Pissarro, who was known for his Impressionist and Neo-impressionist paintings.
The cemetery has a few paved paths and dozens of tiny dirt paths that take visitors past the graves. To find Pissarro, we took a right just inside the gate to walk along the west perimeter of the cemetery’s wall. After several steps, sure enough, we found Pissarro’s crypt where at least eight family members were buried. The names were listed on a grand rounded slab of white marble with two angel wings sticking out at the top.
Nearby Pissarro, my map indicated that the 12th century lovers, Héloise and Abélard, were buried, their remains brought to the cemetery in 1817 from Brittany. We found their monument which is an openwork Gothic Chapel from an abbey in southwestern France. Underneath the roof are two reposing statues of the tragic lovers who were forced apart by their families and spent the rest of their lives writing letters of love.
After finding the tombs of these lovers, our luck evaporated. According to my map, the Rothschild family plot was nearby. Since the French Rothschilds were the founders of a banking dynasty in France, I expected their tomb to be colossal and easy to find. We scanned the names on several large monuments beside the dirt path, but we never found them. We found ourselves alone on the claustrophobic dirt path edging the gargantuan cemetery wall, shivered at the thought of being amongst more deceased souls than live ones, so gave up our search for the Rothschilds.
We took a teeny side path to reach Chemin Serre, a wider path than the lonely one we had just left, but still somber from the shade of countless trees which blocked out the view of the sky. Somewhere on this path was the grave of one of the most famous souls in the cemetery, the 1960s rock star Jim Morrison. According to my guide book, Morrison’s grave is the most visited in the grounds and, ever since he died, people have made pilgrimages to see his tomb, leaving behind graffiti, trash, and samples of drugs. We searched for the fenced-in tomb, which is supposedly an unexceptional relic. We asked passers-by if they knew where the grave was, and they pointed us in the right direction. We couldn’t find it. We looked for a grave that had a crowd of people gazing at it, but couldn’t find either a crowd or the famed resting place. We gave up.
I was probably most excited about seeing the tomb of Oscar Wilde since I am a fan of his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde’s story about a man that has his portrait painted and then sells his soul so he never loses his youth; instead, his portrait ages and records the sins of his amoral life. To reach Wilde’s grave, a visitor has to walk up the hill to the top of the cemetery, and my husband was unwilling to do this. Leaving him sitting on a bench on a popular paved pathway, I started ascending the hill. Oscar’s grave was at the juncture of Avenue Carette and Avenue Circulaire. I walked, I inhaled through my nostrils and out through my mouth to regulate my breathing as I ascended the steep terrain. I passed tombs of men surrounded by statues of weeping women, which I thought was a bit arrogant on their part.
I discovered the mausoleum of the Monet family, which may or may not be related to the impressionist artist Claude Monet who is buried in Giverny. I also found a crypt for the Macon family which I hoped was related to Emmanuel Macon, the French president. Unfortunately, though, when I reached the spot where I thought Oscar Wilde was buried, I couldn’t find him. I looked up at the grand crypts. I read the names on several flat tombs, but Wilde’s final resting place eluded me.
I next took the opportunity to find the side-by-side tombs of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, who were also supposed to be buried at the top of the cemetery on Avenue Circulaire. Gerturde Stein was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector who hosted a salon for writers and artists in Paris. Toklas was her long-time lover. Where were they? Did I have to step over graves to find them hidden in the middle of a mass of deceased humanity? I’ll never know because I gave up and went to join my own lover who was still sitting on his bench watching other people struggle with their maps.
Together, we found a memorial for the 6,000 Jews who died in World War II in the German concentration camps. We also discovered a crypt for the Famille Charlemagne, and since the ancient King of the Franks had 18 children, I know he certainly has descendants who are now buried in this Paris cemetery.
The last person I wanted to find was Frédéric Chopin, the Polish composer that I mentioned earlier. According to my almost useless map, he was buried at the juncture of three dirt paths a short walk away from the Monument aux Morts, a grandiose marble monument to the dead with several grieving statues. I left my husband again, sitting on a bench along the circular road that surrounds the monument, and, again, I traipsed uphill to find Chopin. Standing on the path, I searched every name on the tombstones near the juncture. No Chopin. Feeling desperate, I courageously scooted between the tightly packed graves to read the graves behind them. No. I hurriedly got out of there. Chopin didn’t want to be found.
Back at the entrance to the cemetery, I read that the cemetery was named after a Jesuit priest, a confessor for King Louise XIV, who lived in a house on the property before the cemetery was built. In 1804, Napolean bought the land so that all Parisiens could be buried, no matter their race or religion. I also learned that, today, over 1 million bodies and cremains are buried in the cemetery. That made me feel better. In the midst of a million ghosts, most of the ones I wanted to see were the ghosts too shy to do any spooking.
Next month, I’m going to Paris for the fourth time.
The first time I visited Paris was with six other college students. We were there on Bastille Day, July 14th, which commemorated the beginning of the French Revolution when the Parisians stormed the Bastille Prison. My friends and I were in the midst of a throng of human beings on the Champs Elysees since everybody celebrates the day by gathering in the streets. Two young men set off fireworks, and the police swept in and arrested them. To disperse the crowd, they launched tear gas grenades into the mass of bodies blocking their way. Suddenly, my throat was filled with knife-sharp chemicals and I croaked like an old frog. The crowd, a mass of forms heaving as a single unit, dragged me and my friend Nancy away from our friends. We never found them until hours later.
The second time I flew to Paris was for work. I stayed at a hotel where, every night, I watched the Eiffel Tower light up at dusk and twinkle over the city until 1:00 a.m. in the morning. I met Olivier at the office who became my French friend until he married and his wife ended our friendship. Olivier took me to a small Franc concert in a beautiful Gothic church and out for a crepe lunch where I enjoyed both savory and sweet crepes—the most delicious pancakes in my life.
The third time, my 17-year-old daughter came with me to Paris. One night, while we were sitting outside the pyramid beside the Louvre, we watched the sun set over the most beautiful skyline in the world. At 8:30, we decided to rush into the Louvre before it closed at 9 p.m. It was a free admission day, so we walked right in. We passed the headless Winged Victory of Samothrace as we climbed the grand staircase up to the gallery where the Mona Lisa was displayed behind bullet-proof glass. No one was there. No one. This gave us the unusual opportunity to gaze at Leonardo’s mystery woman from several vantage points and to watch her eyes follow us from side to side.
My daughter and I also toured the French Catacombs which contain the bones of over 6 million people who were once buried in the cemeteries of Paris above ground. We walked for miles within the old limestone tunnels underneath Paris, discovering piles of skulls, femurs, hips, and other bones stacked in piles along the shaft walls. I don’t want to ever visit those unfortunate disassembled people again.
Now, I’m going to Paris for my fourth time with my husband who has never been. We’re boating down the Seine, visiting the Louvre, inspecting the Impressionists at the Musee D’Orsay, witnessing Napoleon’s Tomb, and touring the Pantheon; however, I want to make sure we make it to Pere Lachaise Cemetery this time. This cemetery is above ground and within walking distance of the Louvre. Although people of all faiths are now buried there, the cemetery takes its name from a Jesuit priest, Francois Le Chaise, the confessor of King Louis XIV, who lived in a Jesuit house on the original site. Hundreds of famous writers, artists, and musicians are buried there including Oscar Wilde, Honor de Balzac, Chopin, Gertrude Stein, and Jim Morrison. I’m trying not to think about why I’m so fascinated with cemetery tourist sites.
Well, I need to get started with my packing. I also have some projects to finish before I go, including completing the homework for my Spanish class. I know it’s ironic that I’m going to France while studying Spanish, but c’est mon vie.
I love wine and live in California where it is delicious and abundant, so when I visited Italy a month ago, I was eager to enjoy Italian vintages. I drank Pino Grigio while eating pizza garnished with creamy mozzarella and sweet anchovies, Soave with pasta tossed in freshly-made pesto, and Chianti with salami and cheese.
What I didn’t expect was that Italian architecture had been influenced by the wine culture of Italy. One day, while we were walking to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, I came across a tiny, filled-in window on the side of a grand palace. The Italian friend who was walking with us told us that it was a wine window from the late medieval times.
Families, such as the Strozzi, Albizi, Pazzi, Ricasoli, and Antinori, who owned vineyards in the country often built palaces in Florence and other towns. Most of the wine grown in Italy in the late medieval times and early Renaissance era was sold to local customers. The wine families installed the tiny windows into the sides of their palaces so they could sell wine to customers without allowing the public into their homes or without coming into contact with them. For a reasonable price, customers could purchase a wicker wine bottle or glass of wine and maybe some ham to go with it. These tiny portals, once referred to as wine tabernacles were popular in Florence from the 15th Century to the early 20th Century.
The Italian word for this architectural feature is buchette. Each one is about 15 inches high and most are little arched doors carved into the stone wall of the noble palaces. This shape has also been used to hang street lanterns, and these are referred to as false buchette. Another type of false buchette is an arched, stone border used to frame a sacred image made out of fresco, terra cotta, or porcelain. These religious images were placed higher up on the wall of a building and served as protector for the inhabitants.
The Association Buchette del Vino has counted 179 buchette windows in Florence and about 280 in the Tuscany Region. I couldn’t find any indication of buchette that were still functioning as wine windows; now, most are filled in with stone, but some serve other purposes today. The portal of the Palazzo Landi on Borgo degli Albizi 17 is now a mailbox. Two others serve as doorbells and some others have been filled in with sacred pictures of Christ or the Virgin Mary.
Last night, I dreamed that I was standing on the outside of a buchette ordering a glass of Pino Grigio. It was a blistering, hot day—the sun beat on my head like a furnace. I ordered a Pino Grigio with a small bowl of olives. Mmm. Nothing tastes better than a Pino Grigio when the heat parches your throat.
I hope the buchette tradition catches on in California like the Little Free Libraries. When I go walking in my neighborhood, I walk past three of these tiny libraries and have so much fun perusing through the titles. I think a glass of wine would be wonderful to accompany my reading.
Sources:
Cornsini, Diletta and Lucrezia Giordano. Wine Windows in Florence and Tuscany. 2021.
Gheesling, Robbin. Wine Doors of Florence. 2021
“Le Buchette del Vino, Florence’s Little Wine Tabernacles.” L’Italo Americano. August 31, 2017. litaloamerican.org/buchette-vino/.
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