,,Les Catacombes de Paris,,- Mysteries Under the City
Cemetery. The archive of past lives.David Boia
In March 2022 I had the opportunity to visit Paris and spend a few spectacular days exploring this city of contrasts.
You know the feeling when you visit a place for the first time, you try to understand it and see as many of the sights most hunted by tourists, I mean sometimes you feel like you're at a car race.
The city needs more time, the most important thing is to try to do what Parisians do, to sit comfortably on a terrace having a coffee and a croissant or a glass of wine, to get lost in the amazing streets of Paris or to try to discover amazing places that are not so well known.
Today we will go together to visit a mysterious place under the city of Paris, namely ,,Les Catacombes de Paris".
The place is one that lately has become very sought after, after visiting this place I realized why it is so popular.
How did we get here?
Just as all the days we explore Paris start from Sartrouville, so it happened today, we took bus 272 from Sartrouville and then took the metro to Denfert-Rochereau station, a big like for public transport in Paris, in most of the metro stations that are located near certain sights under the name of the metro station is listed in a brown color the tourist objective you reach if you get off at that station.
Let's start …
After getting off the subway I got on the surface I put the address on the gps and started walking on the busy streets of the city, my god, how beautiful this city can be, I can't get enough of it.
After about 20 minutes we arrive at the location and here surprise we find a queue of about 30 meters, I go to the entrance and ask if we can visit this place today, an employee asks us if we have bought tickets, I tell him I want to buy them from the cashier, he tells me that due to the restrictions imposed by the pandemic we can only visit this place if we buy tickets online and access it based on the code generated.
The part with buying tickets online was a bit more difficult for me and I had to ask for help, there I met a very nice person who helped me and finally I managed to buy the tickets.
I give you a tip if you want to visit this amazing location see that online you can choose the time and day you want to enter, when you select the time automatically the program will tell you if there are free seats or not.
The price of the ticket we bought was 15euro/person, the ticket was called Billet du jour - last minute for 15:15.
Les Catacombes de Paris can be visited almost every day from 9:45-20:30, and is closed on Mondays.
Ready to explore, after scanning our ticket codes we moved on to visit the place, not to forget to tell you that this place can be visited with an authorized guide but the ticket costs more.
I feel obliged to tell you now that visiting this place is not for everyone, why do I say that, because here you will find a cemetery where the bones of the people in question are exposed, the place where you walk is sometimes a bit narrow, so people who suffer from claustrophobia I do not recommend coming here, and the smell inside is strange.
To reach the catacombs at first you have to go down 131 stairs and after you are ready to visit this place you have to climb 112 stairs, the temperature inside is a constant 14 degrees, when we were here in March outside were around 18 degrees and here 14 degrees did not feel a big difference in temperature.
Paris is known to have several hundred kilometers of such underground tunnels, and these catacombs are around 2 kilometers long, some of them leading to the exit of Paris, but not all entrances are made public, many of them remaining a mystery.
At first sight this place left me speechless (I know for some it represents a macabre place), it was formed by relocating the earthly remains of those who were buried in the largest cemetery in Paris (Cemetery of the Holy Innocents) and other cemeteries that belonged to monasteries (more info).
We started to walk through the tunnel, a stone plaque caught my attention right at the beginning that said "Arrête! C'est ici l'empire de la Mort!" ("Stop! Here is the empire of Death!") , cold sweat started to trickle down my back, I stayed for a few seconds then continued my walk.
Visiting the catacombs took us about an hour and a half, if you don't stop to take too many pictures and read the messages written on the stone plaques the visit can take even less up to an hour.
After about half an hour of walking and taking pictures we come across a fountain, from the information I read on the signs there I find out that it is called The Fountain of the Samaritaine, it is surrounded by walls made of human bones, In fact these are catacombs, tunnels dug in limestone and on the edges were built human bones (I believe that here sleep millions of human skeletons that have been relocated), human bones being walled perfectly (probably to look good in front of those who visit the place), in one place I could even see a heart made of human skulls (I repeat again the place is not for everyone).
A little further on we came across a kind of barrel made of human bones and skulls.
During my walk through the catacombs under the city I came across these:
I met some skulls in the shape of a heart, what a paradox.
We were warned from the start that this place is not for everyone.
After so much walking through bones and human skulls we got hungry and ate something extremely tasty.
In conclusion I can say that I am glad I got to visit this place, I don't know how to say it so as not to be misunderstood, but I like how they have thought and built the part that can be visited, because here it was a titanic work to build so many human bones, it seemed strange to me that we entered through a place, they checked our backpack inside and out (it's completely forbidden to steal bones, skulls or anything else from there) at the end of the visit we went out somewhere else.
If you liked what you saw and read here please don't forget to give a LiKe, Follow, reBlog or a Comment, for all this I thank you, and until the next post I say goodbye.
P.S. The attached pictures you have just seen are taken by me with my mobile phone, and the text is also designed by me.
Yours @triplug!