With its long central avenue lined with double rows of linden trees, its flowered banks, its ponds full of dancing water lilies and the benches from which to admire the views, Bois-de-Vaux is one of the rare cemeteries of its size (26,000 spaces) to have such charm.
Here lies Coco Chanel, under a bed of permanently white flowers. Not far away are to be found the graves of lexicologist Paul Robert, founder of the “Petit Robert” dictionary, Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic Games, Victor Desarzens, founder of the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, the architect responsible for renovating Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris and numerous other personalities. This cemetery is separated into areas surrounded by a considerable ring of greenery, and is chiefly distinguished by its regular alignments of trees and its 40 kilometres of perfectly trimmed hedges.
