Okay I get it now. Paris really is magical.

After getting to spend a weekend, which included Valentine’s Day, in the ‘City of Love,’ I am completely infatuated with Paris. I am so much less intimidated by Angers now, which has been dwarfed in its size and atmosphere. 

After spending all day in the Pére Lachaise Cemetary, I couldn’t help but get a lovey-dovey feeling being around so many corpses. 

Okay I admit it’s a little morbid that I spent the day walking around a cemetery, but it actually was strangely romantic and gothic. 

The cemetery is huge. It was established by Napoleon and spans 110 acres. I had the pleasure of seeing about a third of the graves. 

Marcel Proust and Moliere make an appearance, and the famous enlightenment painter, Eugéne Delecroix (the guy who is responsible for Coldplay’s Viva La Vida album cover, duh) are just a few of the millions of dead French guys entombed. 

There are others who may be a bit more well-known to most Americans, like Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde. 

The cemetery also features several monuments and memorials, and is even trying to get high-tech with a tomb that has a big camera and a bar code on it. You can scan your cell phone to get information about the dead person inside. If that doesn’t sound like a good use of mobile data to you than I don’t know what does…

So, once I had my fill of damp cobblestone and old graveyards, I took the subway to a lighter part of the city, and topped off my Valentine’s adventure with a midnight under the glittering Eiffel tower drinking champagne.

We also ate at a nice café next to the Eiffel Tower. I had a croque monsuier. It was the most inspiring sandwich I’ve ever had. 

Our waiter was very friendly, just as the people in Paris generally are, with an exception of the lady working at Paul (a popular boulangerie and patisserie) who told me not to take any pictures of the pastries. It’s okay though, I’m sure I can find lots of other places in France to take pictures of bread.

So minus the Paul lady, my entire weekend was perfect, which is exactly why I can’t wait to go back and spend more time with dead people in the catacombs.