Retour a Paris!

Here we are back in Paris after our trip to Venice. It's wonderful to be back, although I did keep saying "grazie" instead of "merci" today! Just to get up to date I'll start with today and then move back to Venice.

One of the things I wanted to do this trip was visit the Cimetiere des chiens d'Asnieres-sur-Seine. Now, I don't know why I thought this was a good idea ... the inscriptions of love and loss in the pet cemetery were too much for me and I cried almost from the minute we entered, so much so that I couldn't walk back through the cemetery. We found another way back through the park.

The cemetery is in the city of Clichy, on the outskirts of Paris. There are still the Haussman-type buildings that you see in Paris, but there are also large, more modern housing blocks, and the boats on the Seine were not tourist cruises but working barges. There are many Halal eating places, Greek and Turkish cafes which are indicative of the mixed nationalities of the city.



We crossed the pont de Clichy to the cemetery which was set in a huge strip of treed parkland just over the bridge and along the river. The cemetery dates from 1899, with some tombstones as recent as 2009. It was peaceful and quiet and the cemetery was carefully tended. Some tombstones had photos, some favourite toys - one had a large clear ball filled with worn, ragged tennis balls; some had poems and some were the site for all the family pets - birds, dogs, cats, horses - their names and dates inscribed in the stone.









Behind the cemetery is a haven for stray cats. We saw four, and we wondered whether there are many stray animals in Paris. With all the apartment living perhaps it is not a problem of the same magnitude as it is in cities like Melbourne. In the photo below one of the stray cats sleeps soundly, snug behind a grave.



The cats are fed and cared for by a long list of volunteers, their names posted on the doors of the small chalet-shaped buildings which we guess houses their food and other necessities. The cats also have wooden houses in which to sleep. Brent made a friend and I was worried he would want to take Monsieur Stripey home.



Outside the cemetery there is a sign detailing the city's establishment of a society for the care of the cemetery and its responsibility for the defence of the cats and birds in the grounds. Sounds to me like Clichy is a happy place for animals, and that makes me happy too.