Today we went 42 meters below street level to visit the Catacombes of Paris. If you want to know the real history, I recommended you wikipedia that, but I'll give you the RD version. Much of the old buildings of the city (like the famous Notre Dame) were built out of limestone quarried directly beneath the city. Because of that, at one point, Paris was at risk of sinking into the pits! It has now been reinforced, but you now have to have a special permit to build over the quarry areas.
The tunnels and rooms span most of the city, and the part we visited is only a fraction of the catacombes, which is only 1/800th of the space under Paris! wow!! The section we visit is interesting because in the 1700's, the cemeteries in the city were becoming a health and space concern. Their solution? Bury the 6 million bodies in the catacombes!
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| The 'piles' you see on top of the wall is actually just the edge of what is a fifty meters deep stack of bodies, with the wall at front. |
They stacked femurs and skulls to make "walls" and behind the walls they stacked the other remains.
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| Look, a heart! How... romantic? |
The walls are decorated and designed, and the tunnels are full of poetry and sayings about Death. There are crosses everywhere and lots of other fairly creepy things.
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| How would you like that job? Arrange these skulls into a cool design, k? |
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| My rough translation: Think in the morning that you may not exist this evening, and think in the evening that you may not be here in the morning. |
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| MRT: Happy is he whose hour of death is always before him, who is ready to face death every day. |
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| I don't remember what this one said...but I liked it, alot! |
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| Who took that one? Um....creepy, no thanks. |
The worst part? There are obviously skulls missing from some sections--who wants to take that home?! At the end of our short tour, the check your bags, to make sure you didn't find a souvenir...right.
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| This guy. Still has teeth. Um..... |
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