Paris Guide: Les Catacombes de Paris

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Before I get to my early morning hours dinner in Paris post, I realized that I didn't share with you one of the cultural favorites for Parisians and tourists alike, our visit to Les Catacombes de Paris. 

This is a site that everyone in our group wanted to visit. Having been before, Lynette thought that it would be an entertaining part of our post-wedding vows party.  Initially, some of us thought it was a little bit macabre to go to a mass burial site on the day of a wedding.  Consider, however, the long history of Paris and how the tunnels and the Catacombs link such a distant past to the present and you can see the romanticism of it.  So, we were all convinced that after our vows was a good time to embark on our visit to the catacombs. 

Following our exchange of vows we returned to Sabrina and Mike's hotel and switched from our wedding clothes into equally impractical party clothes.  Sequins and loafers flying from one end of the room to the other and before long we were all set to go. The weather in Paris that day was particularly erratic.  It started out sunny while at breakfast, turned to rain while we dressed, back to sunshine for our vow exchange (I'll share photos of that later).  When we emerged from the room ready to head out it was again raining. 

Having purchased tickets in advance we didn't want to chance being late to our designated entrance time and so we called a car and piled in.  Just minutes after entering the car, the rain turned to large pearls of ice pelting the windows.  A layer of icy sleet quickly covered the streets and sidewalks.  We were very lucky to be traveling by car.  I included a short video of the storm below.  Before long we were at the entrance to the catacombs and the grey and strange weather had set the mood perfectly.  

Paris is a city that is over 2,000 years old.  Beneath the city lay approximately 200 miles of limestone quarry tunnels as old as the city itself.  For a long time the tunnels were unmapped and poorly regulated.  In 1774 Rue Denfert-Rochereau collapsed into a quarry. This cataclysmic event forced King Louis XVI to begin regulation and mapping of the tunnels beneath the city.  Around the same time, as you may know, Paris was facing a crisis of overcrowding in the cemeteries and this led to contamination spilling into the city sewage. To address this problem, it was decided in 1787 that the remains of those so many departed souls would be placed underground in the quarry tunnels and the It's estimated that the remains of 7 million are buried here.  After going through the admissions office, you descend 130 steep steps into the tunnel. Initially you will not see bones but rather walk through the tunnel and be told of how they were organized, what the names and different carvings mean.  Then all at once you turn a corner and you are standing there with the remains of the dead.  One of the unsettling things is that the bones and skulls have been arranged to make it more sightly.  You'll find skulls arranged in the shape of a heart (see above) or crosses or various other configurations.  It feels simultaneously reverent and irreverent. 

ln addition to the chills you may get in standing face to face to a fate that we will all one day encounter, it is chilly in the catacombs.  Be sure to dress in layers to protect from the coolness down below. It was a great visit and as happy as I was to go under and do the tour I was happy to climb the 83 steps back up to reemerge to the city streets of Paris.