CRF: Hungary

"CRF" is not a crime show you've never heard of, it stands for "Cutting Room Floor." Below are some of our favorite pics that never made the blog. We figured we'd reminisce a little while we're home for a visit. (Back in Europe August 20th).

Kalocsa is a small town with a lot going for it. Its claims to fame are varied and fascinating. It is the "paprika capital of Hungary," was the Holy See for one of the country's four archbishops and is the birthplace of some of the most celebrated and iconic Hungarian folk art. So, in one short day trip, we visited a museum dedicated to the national spice, saw the skeleton of Saint Pious all dressed up with no where to go and marveled at the colorful Kalocsa floral patterns at the Károly Viski Museum.

The Hungarian Great Plain or "Puszta" is the land of the cowboy. We went to see the csikósok at work (and play) in a fantastically entertaining and slightly bizarre horse show in Bugac. Here, a donkey sits in the stable mentally preparing for his part in the show alongside the majestic horses. Needless to say, he was the butt of a few jokes.

Just a simple lunch at a simple roadside eatery. Eggs, potato, sausage. Of course, there was paprika involved.

Hungary is a land-locked country with plenty of water. Aside from lakes like Balaton and Baja, there are over one thousand thermal springs that feed into baths and spas, indoor and out. Above, a woman relaxes on flotation noodles in the indoor section of the bath at Lake Hévíz. People had traveled from all over Europe to soak in the curative waters of Hévíz for hours. The pungent smell of sulfur and bobbing swimming capped heads made us think of hard boiling eggs. The regular bathers were no doubt more accustomed to the smell.

Eger was a really lovely city in which we camped for days.  It was our first stop in Hungary and, our first real days of summer in 2011.  We couldn't wait to see everything come to life once again after our long, cold, Slavic winter.  Sure, spring is great, but nothing quite beats green grass, flash showers, children trading backpacks for ice cream cones, overflowing market stands.  Watermelon. 

A cemetery in Eger. Last names first and plenty of flowers.

We can't remember exactly where we took this picture, but it was most likely in Eger - either from the top of the northernmost Turkish minaret in the world or up in Eger Castle. 

About 20 kilometers south of Kalocsa, we turned off at Hajós. The village has the largest concentration of wine cellars in Europe, around 1300 in just a blip of a town. Out of season (we were there in late June) the pincék were all shuttered. Only the faint smell of fermented grape hinted at the bustle of activity that would once again begin in a few months.

A summer concert in Eger's park draws an excited but demure crowd.

Just a small town corner store we past on our way to the horse show in Bugac. It was a sleepy town in that familiar way, somewhere between one long stretch of flat road and another.

The Frontier: Bosnian Krajina

We came up to the Krajina trying to get out into the wilderness, lured by stories of river rafting and ancient castles.  We found the edge of Bosnia, where the country long ago mixed and bled into the world outside.
A frontier is both one thing and another.  The very meaning of the word suggests two sides, where something comes up against the unknown, or the other.  The Bosanska Krajina - or "Bosnian Frontier" - is a place where war has always been close at hand, where the people are quiet and tough, where minarets rise beside cornfields and river trout jump at flies.  This is the most beautiful and wild corner of Bosnia and Herzegovina, pushed up into the sickle of Croatia and overflowing with rivers and pretty towns.

In Banja Luka, government buildings still fly the Serbian war flag. In the northern plains and forests, Muslim farmers and loggers make up the vast majority. In 1992, the Bosanska Krajina was swept over by fighting. A quick and ugly front sprang up between towns and ruined any chance for camaraderie in the future.  The combatants - Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks - have mostly withdrawn to their own corners, creating homogenous enclaves where once there were ethnic mixes. Wounds are licked.  Life goes on.
An old name for the Krajina was the "Ljuta Krajina," or the "angry frontier."  It's been at the heart of almost every conflict fought in this part of the world: the fault line between Roman Dalmatia and the invading slavs, the grating edge between Austro-Hungaria and the Ottomans, the headquarters of the Yugoslav partisans during WWII, the bloody site of Serb concentration camps during the conflict of the nineties. War is ingrained in the landscape.

On the other hand, the area is also very peaceful, even bucolic.  Farmland abuts pine forests, there are countless woodland springs and the soft, low mountains have a sentimental resemblance to old-europe or New England.  If the people are reserved, they're also determined and hard working. Towns like Bihac, Jajce and Cazin fill up in the evening with men in from the fields and woods. Tan, broad shouldered youths drink beer in workboots and jeans, a scene that would be familiar in Oklahoma or the Hungarian Puszta.  Tractors rumble through the streets, lamb grills on roadside spits, the food is a hearty mix of grilled meats and potatoes - with some river fish mixed in.

In the dyer valleys between rivers, the land is more yellow hued and open.  To the north of Bosanki Petrovac, we drove through a long expanse of fields.  There were a few houses, but mostly they lay in ruins, shelled during the war.  Much of the land was fallow.  Shepherds huts and carts had replaced the old farms, perched high on the valleysides.  In the intense light of noon, they were like faraway glimpses of the past.  Flocks of sheep moved as one thing, spreading and contracting on the grass.  It was an empty place, where the driving was fast and straight and there were few other cars.

Several thousand Bosniaks were imprisoned, tortured and raped at the Serbian Omarska concentration camp, near the town of Prijedor.  One of the most publicized and awful outrages of the Bosnian war, Omarska was officially referred to as an "investigation center" by the Serbs who had taken control of the region - in truth, between four and five thousand people were shot, beaten or starved to death at the camp before it was shut down.  Mass graves have only partly been exhumed, the Mittal Steel company resumed operations at the town mine after the war and hasn't allowed much investigation.
Cazin, not far away from Omarska, up at the very point of the frontier, came to life in the evenings after the daily Ramazan fasting.  We ate dinner at Papillon restaurant, which served proudly national food.  A man popped in and out of the kitchen with plates and bags of cevapi. Only one other man ate in the restaurant, but there were plenty of other people waiting to bring food home.  We have stopped trying, in this land, to reconcile normalcy with horror.

This was once one of the most ethnically and religiously mixed regions of Yugoslavia, with Catholic Croats, Muslim Bosniaks and Orthodox Serbs living together somewhat peaceably.  When this was the end-point of the Ottoman Empire, the government encouraged Muslim farmers and Bosniak families to move here and create a kind of buffer against the Hungarian and Austrian lands beyond.  Later, in the 18th century, Serb herders and mercenaries came to graze sheep and fight against the northern neighbors.  The boundary changed often, allegiances broke generally along religious lines, the Krajina's culture changed much less than its boundaries.
Joseph Broz Tito, the daring young Partisan leader (and later ruler of Yugoslavia) hid his base in a cave near Dvar, in the thick of the Krajina's mountains.  Thousands of German paratroopers failed to capture him there in the embarrassingly unsuccessful Operation Rösselsprung - his escape and the Yugoslav victory helped create a legend after Tito returned.

In truth, our experience in the frontier has had little to do with bloodshed.  We've traveled here like drivers across the American west, covering large distances and letting a larger ambience sink in.  Between busy towns, there are stretches of light and shadow as the trees and plains pass and the sun rises or sinks.  We've come by lakes near Jajce, followed river canyons around Bihac, climbed winding passes through the firs.  The towns, when they appear, are pass-throughs, with sunny-walls and self-contained cultures - a whirl of gossip, wedding halls, rusty trucks and the smell of meat.  Sometimes we stop, sometimes we don't.  In Bosanski Petrovac, we parked our car at the bus station - a place even more transient, where ancient-caravan buses creaked and puttered in from the lands around.  We ate lunch at "Florida Restaurant," where the sign was very faded but the trout was perfectly fresh and tender.

As we licked ice cream in the old castle of Bosanska Krupa, looking down on the Una river, we felt satisfied that we'd made it far enough.  We had a pleasant time doing it, too.  The Bosanska Krajina is a beautiful place to come to grips with history and culture.
For us, this is also the frontier of our journey - the last push into the hinterlands of the Balkans, of southern Europe, middle Europe, wherever it is that we are.  In a few days, we'll be ensconced in Sarajevo, then headed home, then on our last leg - Scandinavia, the British Isles, places that feel especially far removed from heat and confusion, tiny cultures, bombed buildings and Turkish coffee.  We'll leave behind a tangle of roads traveled and looped, borders crossed, towns with impossible names.  This is the last foray into this particular wilderness, and, standing in the breeze atop the castle, we began to sense the end.  Fitting, probably, that this historical middle ground felt like a perfect place to finish the chapter.

The Merry Cemetery

Not this man, but another buried nearby in Săpânţa's cemetery loved his horses.  "One more thing I loved very much, To sit at a table in a bar, Next to someone else's wife,"  his gravestone continues.  The words were not exactly his and who knows if he'd be too happy about them being his epitaph.  They were written by Stan Ioan Pătraş, the artist who created 700 of the unique tombstones that fill what is now dubbed "The Merry Cemetery." Each epitaph is written in first person and is a tribute to the villager it represents. Sure, this might mean betraying a person's taste for O.P.P. or strong liquor, but mostly the words simply convey what that villager did day in and day out.  Every so often, it also describes the circumstances of the person's death.

The art is simplistic, folky and bright.  People mostly look the same, which makes their action in the scene even more of a characterization.  We couldn't read any of the words while we were there, but were completely immersed in looking at the portraits.  Women were most often weaving, farming or cooking - but what instruments they were using alluded to that special dish that they may have been known for. Dough rolled out, carrots chopped or mixing bowl in hand.  Men were represented as the butchers, bartenders, shepherds, policemen and soldiers that they were. Their roles in the community.

A noteworthy number of men are depicted alongside their tractor, truck or car.  This doesn't necessarily mean they were mechanics.  Driving around the village of Săpânţa, even today, the houses don't have driveways.  Vehicles are not simply something everyone has.  What those paintings of the red pick-up or blue two-door are really showing is the pride that their owner had felt.  The accomplishment, the ownership.  As the years on the tombstones move on through the 40s, 60s, 80s, automobiles pop up more and more.  They begin to be depicted not just as part of a legacy or portrait, but also in the 'scene of death' illustrations.  Many of the gravestone have art on both sides.  Life on the front, death on the flipside.

One epitaph, written for a 3-year old, curses that "damn" taxi that "couldn't find somewhere else to stop" and struck her.  The verse is angry and heartbreaking.  Such is the case with accidental deaths caused by reckless driving or alcoholism. You can hear the blame being cast. But what else is an artist to do? Especially when you know these people personally.  When people had a chance to offer input for their own grave, I'm sure they did.  In cases where the deceased had been sick for a long time, there are declarations of gratitude to the caretakers and supporters. 

I feel like each decorated cross turns the person beneath it into a sort of folk legend.  Some are tragic figures, others are comic, most are archetypes, some are heroes. "They're lives were the same, but they want their epitaphs to be different, " Dumitru Pop remarked to the New York Times in 2002.  The Merry Cemetery has become somewhat of an unlikely tourist attraction in a tiny town just miles from the Ukrainian border.  Pop, who has been making the gravestones for almost 40 years at this point, confessed to carrying around a notebook to record juicy Sunday morning gossip.  His mentor, Pătraş, was right about there being no secrets in Săpânţa.

Stan Ioan Pătraş created the tombstones from 1935 until his death in 1977.  Before he passed, of course, he created his own.  It is in the same style most of the rest, double-sided with a portrait on the front and a scene from his life on the back.  The tableau he chose shows him at a work table, creating a tomb marker while a young man plays a violin.  His autobiographical epitaph talks about the "cross he bore," in supporting his family.  It lacks the humor or irony of many of his other verses.  His home, now a small museum, paints a different picture.  His life's work pops off the wall like a celebration.  It hardly feels like a chore, a burden - then again, these were also the instances in which his art didn't need to be consumed by death. 

Newspaper clippings, portraits and - fittingly - post-mortem degrees cover some walls, but really, what you notice is all of the art!  And all of the religious iconography that the Merry Cemetery is noticeably lacking.  Above the bed are portraits he created for Communist Party members.  He had been embraced by them, a local artist who was tied more to folk traditions than Western influence. Nicolae Ceauşescu himself, along with his equally notorious wife, stopped by to have their portraits done.  

Pătraş left his house and workshop to Dumitru Pop, his best apprentice, who continues the tradition to this day.  When we arrived at the small cottage, Pop was working away outside.  The familiarly shaped cross lay on his workbench, painted "Săpânţa blue."  He simply nodded and let us into the home and then sat in the corner as we looked around.  I wondered whose cross we'd taken him away from his work on.  Was he close with them?  Were they already dead?  Will he create his own marker like his teacher had - and, if so, what will it say?

Calling it "Merry Cemetery" may be a little misleading.  A signpost that translates it to "Happy Cemetery" in town is even more so.  Some paintings show obviously dejected people, some tributes are downright morose.  That's what makes the place so incredibly captivating - it is 'merry' only in its lack of soberness.  "Lively" would be a better word, I think.  Just like each person's life, these wooden crosses are unique and personalized, but also undeniably connected.  Dripping with local color, in many ways they are indistinguishable from one another.   The Merry Cemetery feels like its own little village within a village, with secret or mundane or too-short lives under each peaked roof.

Malta's Old Necropolis, St. Paul's Catacombs

Shipwrecked and sodden, the apostle St. Paul arrived on Malta under less than ideal circumstances. The people he met there were apparently gracious and friendly - Roman citizens, technically, but far removed from Rome and with their own customs and habits. During his three month stay on Malta in AD 60, Paul converted Publius, the island's de facto leader, cured an old man of dysentery, wowed the population and established a strange relationship between Christianity and Empire in Malta.

Some two hundred years later, as they were digging graves in the Maltese limestone, the residents of Melite (now Mdina) mixed these two influences in a strange and fascinating way. Above, a marker for the subterranean grave of a doctor.

On a recent sunny morning we descended into the cool, dark world of St. Paul's catacombs, where about 1,000 people were buried during the third and fourth centuries. We were in the relative center of Malta, just on the edge of Mdina and Rabat, the twin "cities" (villages is a more appropriate word) that constitute the old capital of the country. The towns occupy a pretty little bulge in the land, where yellow limestone rises above the green fields below.

Underground, a maze of interconnected caverns and passageways spreads out into the rock, the walls pockmarked with hollows and archways - the biggest necropolis found on the island.
St. Paul's catacombs actually have nothing to do with Paul, other than that they are nearby to the cathedral built in his honor. They were dug to house the remains of Melitta's dead, which - under Roman law - were required to be interred outside the city walls. Compared with similar catacombs in Italy and elsewhere, the complex is only of middling size. But, at 24,000 square feet, the place feels huge. Graves were dug into walls, next to one another and, eventually, into the floor as space grew scarce. There are markers adorned with carvings that gave some information about the person's livelihood and guild. Most of this is normal.

But because Malta was isolated to an extent from the rest of the Empire, the architectural style of the tombs is unusual and distinctly local, particularly because of how varied the different graves are. A few badly damaged remains of murals also survive, which are almost unique to the site. But the main point of interest is that the catacombs seem to have been (at least in part) a Christian necropolis dug in the time before Rome converted.

St. Paul's cathedral stands on the spot where Paul and Publius, according to legend, were said to have met. It's a large, rebuilt structure - an older church was destroyed by an earthquake, the current iteration was constructed around 1700. It soars suddenly out of an open square, a surprise in the tangled, cramped lanes of Mdina. When the Normans conquered Malta from the Arabs, during the 12th century, they cleared a large part of the city to build the church on ground they considered especially holy. Today, Malta is the most religious European country, and one of the most homogenously Roman Catholic in the world - the tradition of Paul and his miracles still runs very strong here. But, surprisingly, there is no proof of Christianity in the years directly after the apostle's visit.

It's been suggested that early Maltese Christians were too afraid of Roman reprisals to express their religion outwardly. After all, Publius himself was killed by emperor Hadrian for his beliefs. One of the most important parts of the catacombs is that they represent the earliest concrete evidence of Christianity on the island, apparently while the Empire still condemned it. Tomb inscriptions and figures of the cross show up in both wall carvings and in the mural fragments, and some of the stranger features in the underground architecture have been attributed to a non-Roman religion.

Probably the most curious and illustrative Christian features of St. Paul's catacombs, though, are the "agape" tables. Circular, low and carved directly out of the rock, the tables were probably used for feasts during the burial, as well as on the day of the dead, on which it's believed that Roman Christians held a festive dinner near the graves of their relatives. Agape tables are common only in Christian necropolises, and are almost always surrounded by a kind of "banquette" made of stone, where the family members could lie down to drink and eat. There are several at this site, all with a strange notch in one side that's hard to explain.

Unfortunately, the human traffic and the humidity we bring in has all but destroyed the paintings and the more important inscriptions. Wandering around the catacombs is a tight and confusing experience. At times, there's quite a bit of space, but often the going is narrow and low. There's interesting variation in the size of the graves - some are tightly packed in small alcoves, other feature large, carved stone drapings and deep troughs. Quite a few feature small headrests, like pillows. Only a small part of the entire complex is open to the public, but it still takes more than an hour to explore.

Honoring the Dead, Keeping an Artform Alive

Khachkars, especially stone ones, are found all over Armenia. They are oblong, carved slabs that commemorate the dead - and they are also exquisite works of art. We've seen over a thousand or them, 900 of which were in the Noraduz cemetery. From encountering our first ones in Southern Armenia to seeing the insane collection of them in that cemetery, our awe never wavered. No two khachkars are alike. The earliest ones date back to the 9th century, though the art form (and number produced) really hit its peak between the 12th and 14th centuries.
Today, there are still khachkar makers in Armenia. Walking through downtown Yerevan, we spotted one craftsman's studio. He was hard at work, but welcomed us into his tarp-tent to take a few photos. Most likely, he was fulfilling the order of a family who wanted to honor a family member in a truly special way. Of course, on a grander level, he was keeping an Armenia art form alive.
A large amount of Armenian khachkars, some of the oldest in existence, wound up in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran and Turkey when modern borders were drawn. Animosity led to a great number of these being destroyed, sometimes by a country's government and sometimes by anti-Armenia vandals. The largest collection is now on western coast of Lake Sevan. We traveled to the fabled "field of khachkars" and were amazed to find that the 900 piece collection wasn't out in some valley with sky all around it. It was right there off the main street of Noraduz, after the bakery and the minimarket. It was the town's cemetery.
A large group of newer graves were sidled right up next to the historic stones. A different type of engraved art adorned the marble slabs. Portraits of the deceased were masterfully etched onto the tombstones. Some vertical "khachkar-shaped" ones were full, life sized portraits. It was just amazing to me to think about how many day trips from Yerevan, how many tourists like us, make the trip to this small town to see the truly awesome field of khachkars. And, as a result, how many visitors the town's recently deceased wind up getting.
Nine hundred. Nine hundred intricately carved completely unique pieces of Christian Medieval Armenian art. Upright, knocked down, leaning to one side or another, covered in lichen. They were adorned, as is tradition, with crosses and rosettes, vines, grapes and flowers. Khachkars as far as the eye could see in one direction and the workaday town below in the other, it was an incredible moment of connection with the country. It's not too often that you get to experience a cultural and historic landmark without being somewhat removed from a country's real, present every day life. What better place to feel that connection with time than a cemetery?
There's something about seeing a cemetery in the distance, a series of upward dashes on a blindingly white snow covered landscape. Out the window of our rental car, we spotted this graveyard. We don't know what the stones look like, how old they are, what village they belong to. Looking at this photo closely, there appears to be a line of footprints leading up the hill toward the site. Maybe the visitor was still there adding to the mini skyline with their shadow.

Old Stones In The Mist

Bad weather. Snow and fog. We tried very hard to see some of the sights of Syunik, this southernmost province of Armenia, but it was difficult. A day spent driving slowly, of Iranian trucks marooned on the side of the icy roads, of white fields, of cleaning windshield wipers, a day of vichyssoise visibility yielded only a few myopic glimpses. A rock here, a stone there, a church emerging from the mist.

People have been in this part of Armenia for thousands of years – some say twenty thousand, others say ten. For as long as they’ve lived here they’ve left markers, scratchings and standing stones. We wandered from cluster to cluster, seeing not much else. These sites were islands in the liquid white of our day, the only solid places we put our feet on the ground, the only things we took pictures of in the dispiriting light.

This is a grave marker set on a rock wall near the Monastery of Vorotnavank.

Vorotnavank was constructed on a ledge beside a chasm, high above the Vorotan river. We could barely see the water below, but the sound of it echoed up to the crumbled defensive walls. Built around 1000 by Queen Shahandukht, the monastery sits empty but whole, surrounded by graves. Some of the marking stones were used at some point to help shore up the walls. It was a silent, lonely place.
Similar gravestones stand around a newer church in Goris. Some are elaborate and finely carved. Others are much simpler, cut in the strange patterns of the place, their faces covered with sheep or human figures. There were men on horseback on some stones, and dancers. Also, small birds, wine jugs, even a pair of scissors.
A much bigger tomb punctuated the bleak air in the tiny hamlet of Aghitu. We found it beside some gas pipelines and a rusting, wheel-less bus. Dating from the sixth century, the arched monument commemorates the life of a forgotten figure – it is famous in part because it’s stayed upright through so many earthquakes. Around its base, a group of smaller graves has gathered.
In the monument’s stone, dozens of crosses have been carved, somewhat haphazardly. We stood in the arched space below the pillars for a while, looking out at the snow and the whitening road. A few cold candle stubs were glommed onto the wall in the back, the rock behind them blackened over the centuries.
Much older than these sites, the rocks of Zorats Kar are also a mystery. Stood up on a lonely hillside sometime between 2000 BC and 3000 BC, the two hundred monoliths are arranged in a spiked, almost-circular pattern. Some of the rocks have small holes cut through them – possibly for celestial purposes, though no-one can figure out exactly what the ancients were observing, or if the holes were intended for looking through at all.
Zorats Kar is a much quieter place than it could be. There is barely a sign, no parking lot, no people. We walked around for a little bit, trying to connect with the design and the scope of the place, but it was impossible in the fog. After a while, there was nothing to do but stand and look, trying to feel something of antiquity. The stones stood quietly. The snow fell. We got back in the car and moved on.

Searching for Jim Morrison

There's a lot to do and see in Paris, so sometimes you just need a little direction. At the suggestion of a family friend, a octogenarian who lived in the city for years, I went over to Père Lachaise cemetery in Belleville. It's the largest cemetery in Paris and feels like a city itself with about 800,000 residents - many of whom are famous. Very famous. So famous that more visitors come to Père Lachaise annually than any other graveyard in the world. Walking around is sort of like embarking on a bizarro Hollywood homes bus tour. Mansion mansion mansion Spielberg's mansion! Grave grave grave Proust! Upon arrival, I decided I needed direction once more and that's how I began my search for Jim Morrison.

When the cemetery was opened in 1804, people were less than excited about trekking all the way out to the 20th arrondissement for a funeral. So, in a brilliant marketing move, they moved the remains of La Fontaine and Molière over to the new digs. Since then, more have arrived. Most are French, some are super French (Marcel Marceau, I'm looking at you) and some aren't French at all (Chopin, Gertrude Stein & Alice B. Toklas, Isadora Duncan). I found Chopin when I noticed a small, huddled group in the distance. They all had their maps out and marked off the name on their morbid scavenger hunt. "I think Edith Piaf won the Nobel Prize for Science," one woman wondered aloud. I almost asked if any of them had found the Lizard King, but decided that success would be sweeter if I found it on my own.

I walked around mapless, aimless but for a memorized "address" for Morrison. It's easy to get lost in Pere Lachaise, not just because of its massive size, its boulevards and winding rues, but because there are so many things to look at. It's a veritable outdoor sculpture park, filled with every sort of grave marker imaginable. Some had no names at all, some had three generations' worth. A somber group of people drove to the chapel for induction of the newest resident and a group of workers renovated the tomb of one of the oldest. A young couple scrubbed at a gravestone together, lathering their loved one's memory up in high, yellow rubber gloves.

As I meandered, a man called me over in French. "This is a very famous French painter, Géricault" he told me after directing me to this site. He pointed out a few more to me "all French," before disappearing as quickly as he'd appeared. It must seem strange to him, that the most visited grave in the cemetery is an Irishman's - Oscar Wilde. I didn't dare tell him who I was on the prowl for. Here's the thing - I just really thought that my mother would like a picture of Jim Morrison's grave.
The newer memorials reflected more modern tastes and a lot were upbeat. Next to this guy was a similar marble slab with an artificial palm tree affixed to the top. Nearby, was a vertical stone that read "It Does Not Have Anything To Do With Anything." Seurat and Pisarro are both buried here and I would have liked to have seen how they were honored. But I was on a mission.A number of graves are opened or destroyed, a few seemed to have new names inscribed over old ones. People came in through the cemetery gates with big, plastic jugs - filling up at one of the available water pumps and then exiting. All of this - along with the fact that the cemetery is secular - gives the space a casual, lived in feeling as opposed to a dreary or austere one. I wish I could have taken better pictures, but the tree shading was flecked with sunlight. Every now and then, someone in a Jim Morrison (or, in one case, Val Kilmer) t-shirt would walk by, flipping through digital pictures contentedly. It gave me hope that my aim was somewhat correct.
Finally, tucked between tombstones and mausoleums, I found Jim Morrison. He's almost impossible to spot, but what do you expect when you just happen to die in Paris after spending five months of your life there? Prime real estate? He was originally buried with no marker at all, but soon the police placed a shield over it. Then, a bust was erected, but it was stolen (a new one is said to be in the works). A tree nearby has messages scrawled all over it, probably acting as a beacon for fans. Anyway, this one's for you, mom!