Batignolles Cemetery and the Dog Cemetery
France > Paris > Montmartre > Batignolles to Clichy > Batignolles Cemetery and the Dog Cemetery
Right at the frontier of the 17e and Clichy, under the périphérique, lies the little-visited Cimetière des Batignolles, with the graves of André Breton, Verlaine and Blaise Cendrars (M° Porte-de-Clichy). A great deal more curious, and more lugubrious, is the dog cemetery (daily except Tues: mid-March to mid-Oct 10am–7pm, mid-Oct to mid-March 10am–5pm; €3; M° Mairie-de-Clichy), on the banks of the Seine at Asnières, one métro stop beyond Porte de Clichy. It's outside the city proper but accessible on the métro line 13, about fifteen minutes' walk from M° Mairie-de-Clichy along rue Martre, then left at the far end of Pont de Clichy. Privately owned, this Cimetière des Chiens occupies a tree-shaded ridgelet that was once an island in the river. Most of its tiny graves decked with plastic flowers, some going back as far as 1900, belong to dogs and cats, many with epigraphs of the kind: "To Fifi, the only consolation of my wretched existence". Among the more exotic cadavers are a Muscovite bear, a wolf, a lioness, the 1920 Grand National winner, and the French Rintintin, vintage 1933.
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