Père Lachaise Cemetery

Opened in 1804 on a hillside once owned by Louis XIV's confessor, Père Lachaise became the world's most famous cemetery, its 44 hectares crowded with the tombs of Chopin, Balzac, Molière, Oscar Wilde, Édith Piaf and Jim Morrison. To attract burials, the city cannily transferred the supposed remains of Molière and Abélard and Héloïse here. Its most haunting corner is the Mur des Fédérés, where on 28 May 1871 the last 147 fighters of the Paris Commune were lined up and shot after a running gun-battle among the graves, their bodies flung into a trench—a site that became a rallying point for the French left. Wilde's tomb is still kissed by admirers.