TOULOUSE
What, a visit to the cemetery? More like a stroll through the pretty paths of a place marked by the lives of ordinary people and famous Toulouse residents, with their passions, rituals and a few architectural extravagances.
The project for a central cemetery was launched in the early 1830s with the aim of gathering the remains resting in several cemeteries in the city centre. The project was entrusted to the city’s young chief architect, Urbain Vitry.
He designed a cemetery on the Terre-Cabade hillside with an English garden and beautiful shaded paths. Inaugurated in 1840, the cemetery gradually expanded to its current size of 33 hectares. Now an aesthetic signature of the Marengo district, its entrance is magnificent, adorned with neo-Egyptian obelisks built of brick and enhanced with gilding. It has become the cemetery for all the people of Toulouse.
Often referred to as Toulouse’s ‘Père Lachaise’, this tour introduces you to the sometimes theatrical, but always dignified and moving architecture of funerary art. It also recounts the fabulous destinies of famous and lesser-known Toulouse residents, such as Léontine de Villeneuve, known as ‘L’Occitanienne’, Chateaubriand’s muse, or ‘Saint Helena’, as well as the moving story of the drowning victims’ plot.
In the event of the cemetery being closed, the tour may be cancelled.
