Catacombs

I did not put any picture here on the top of my post; it might have frightened certain of my visitors. Take this as a warning! :-)

First you have to walk down many steps, then follow some long corridors and then you will find what may frighten some of you (us). We are down in what is called the Catacombs, which also could be called the Paris Municipal Ossuary.

These are actually part of the numerous quarries that you can find under large parts of Paris, totally some 280 km (174 miles). In 1785 it was decided to use a small part of the quarries for the evacuation – for insalubrity reasons - of the Innocents cemetery (see previous post), which had been the central Paris cemetery for centuries. The bones were displaced under decent conditions (blessings, processions...). Later, and during the first part of the 19th century, bones were also removed from other Paris cemeteries. It seems that some also arrived here directly from the guillotine. It is estimated that the remainders of some six million Parisians now rest here and the bones and the skulls are to a large extent ranged in good order.

You can visit part of the Catcombes. You enter at Place Denfert-Rochereau, but you will leave them in a small adjacent street after a walk of some 1,7 km (1 mile). I have tried to approximately show you the trace of the corridors you follow. The temperature remains at a stable 14°C (57°F), which is nice a cold winter day and I guess also a hot summer day.

I tried to avoid the flash use, but it’s partly quite dark down there, so you have to live with a rather low photo quality.