Les Catacombes de Paris

14-Nov-2010 (Sunday). I'm tired out by now, so today my hubby took the lead of being the tour guide. He wanted to take me to the Catacombs. It was one of my to-see places in France, but I wasn't sure if there were any in Paris, or how I would react to skulls and skeletons even though I'm pretty dark in nature :P

The great thing about the place we were staying in was that it was within walking distance to everything! (more about lodging in later entries). So we decided to walk there! It was a pleasant walk, with a light rain accompanying us. We were pretty distracted by the Sunday street markets, and the streets were just filled with people and the smell of food! Lovely as can be.

Le Catacomb took some time to locate. It's not exactly clearly marked. But if you see a long queue there, it's probably the right place. You can't really see anything at the street level, cause the attraction is underground. The entrance is pretty intimidating. You pay for a ticket, and there's a staircase that goes all the way down into the ground. The following warnings are shown as you start your journey:

CAUTION, PARTICULAR CONDITIONS OF VISIT :
Visits limited to 200 Visitors in the site (entries can be stopped temporarily)
  Duration of the visit: 45 minutes - length 2 km
  No toilets, no cloakroom
  130 steps to be gone down, 83 steps to be gone up
  Temperature: 14°
  Visit disadvised to the people suffering of  cardiac or respiratory weakness and of nervous disease.

  Visit disadvised to young children

Children of less than 14 years must be accompanied by an adult

I'm claustrophobic and don't do well in small confined places. But I really really wanted to see this, so in I went.

The first few chambers were museum like, with photos and explanation of the place. It's a kinda warning of what you're about to encounter. The photos were pretty graphic, but fear not. It has been ages since they were taken, so all that's left down there now are just bones, 2km worth of it.

This was my first encounter of human remains, and it was not just one, but thousands and thousands of it. At first I actually thought those skulls were stacked up on stones, but on a closer look, those were actually body parts! Femur, tibia, finula, you name it, you got it. You're free to touch them, which I couldn't resist.

I'm glad I visited this place. There's just something about being near the dead for me. Not rotting dead, or dying dead. But dead with ages, stone cold, silent, and peaceful. To me, death is the eternal sleep, the eternal slumber, the eternal peace. There's just something very beautiful about it to me.


Ref:
Catacombs of Paris (Wiki)
Les Catacombes de Paris