All Creeped Out in the Catacombs of Paris
October 30, 2009 by Melanie
Filed under Europe, France, Paris, Western Europe
Happy Halloween, fair readers. On this chilly and damp holiday of frights, I’m thinking about the hands-down spookiest place Adam and I have yet been – the Catacombs of Paris.Back in the 1700s, Parisian cemetery overflow finally became too much for even the odor-tolerant French to bear; improperly managed decay was spreading disease to hundreds of people. All cemeteries within city limits were condemned and their, um, contents were moved to a network of abandoned quarries and underground tunnels. The catacombs were born.
The catacombs of today are now a temple of bones deep beneath the city.
The entrance is a little museum in the 14th Arrondissment, and the staircases down and up are narrow to the point of claustrophobia. Light is dim, corners shrouded in shadow. There’s a mysterious dampness, and you can hear the echoes of dank water dripping slowly from the ceiling.
When our eyes adjusted to the darkness, our bellies filled with dread.
Skulls are stacked in neat rows, their hollow eye sockets staring endlessly into nothing. Femurs are cris-crossed, piled, wedged, arrayed. Knee-bones are most decidedly not connected to ankle bones.
Adam, a movie poster designer, saw a perfect opportunity to take some special effects photography. The end result are some of the freakiest damn photos I’ve ever seen (see above).
That this place has been a major tourist attraction since the late 1800s is intriguing. That parts of the Paris Metro were built below and around this warren of human remains is nothing sort of disconcerting. That the ground above the catacombs has been known to cave in on them from time to time is downright scary.
May the bones of the long-dead rest in peace. In the meantime, next time you’re in Paris — watch where you’re walking.
Hmm.. I’m a bit concerned.. in my 5+ month stint in Paris in 2001, I never did see the Catacombs. And I was living in the 14th Arrondissement, near Alesia. Oh boy, I must have been in a much deeper hole than this temple of bones.
I actually found your blog on the T-List, and have enjoyed reading the content I’ve had the chance to check out. Will be visiting regularly!
Best,
Suz (a.k.a. Lil’ Boozie)
“3 Troopin’ Travelers”
Suz, hello and thanks for visiting Travels With Two!
The Catacombs are one of those things that are pretty easy to miss…it’s not like there are big signs advertising all the stylishly-arranged human bones underground! While keeping ourselves entertained on the Chunnel from London, we stumbled across a short paragraph about the Catacombs in our Eyewitness Paris travel book:
http://www.amazon.com/Paris-EYEWITNESS-TRAVEL-GUIDE Tillier/dp/1564581853
It makes you think…what the heck else is Paris hiding down there?
Hope to see you around here again soon!
Melanie
Travels With Two
Been there, done that!
I wanted Ashley to see what happens to bad wives… The thing that I found most interesting/creepy was how the bones were primarily “relocated” from flooded graveyards. Can you imagine if your job was to carry them across the city … or worse yet, cement them together like a mosaic? No thanks!
Josh, that’s truly the most horrifying job I can imagine…except, maybe, for the people who have to manually clean the sewers in Mumbai. At least with bone-mosaic-making, there’s some art involved…
I have heard of the Catacombs before, and it is a must visit one day. Sounds really creepy – BUT, have you visited Muncie or Elkhart or Terre Haute, IN – CREEPY- STINKY – FRIGHTENING