The Catacombs 22 May 2012

Went on another Paris Walks tour.
15 euros each plus 6 euros each for the entrance fee.
Metro: Denfert-Rochereau in the 14 arrondissement.

We met Chris, the guide, at the entrance and walked straight in, avoiding the long queue of people waiting to enter. Apparently, you can be lined up there for 2 hours.

The entrance to the Catacombs is south of the former city gate the "Barriere d'Enfer" at the now  Place Denfert-Rochereau.

This is in the middle of Place Denfert-Rochereau.
It is a small bronze version of Bartholdi's 'Lion"
in commeration of Colonel Denfet-Rochereau's
successful defence of Belfort in 1870-1871.
It has no tongue.

This is one of the custom houses which is an example of Ledoux' city gates and toll-houses, which were around
"the wall of Paris". The other one is behind me next to the entrance to the Catacombs.
On the liberation of Paris in August 1944 it was found that the resistance Movement
had established its headquarters under these houses and in the catacombs.

This is a skull that Chris, our guide is going to return to the staff at the Catacombes.
Someone on a tour had pinched it but agreed to have Chris return it to the staff.

To go into the tunnels, you enter down a narrow stone spiral stairwell of 19 metres.

The catacombs are 20 metres underground within a labyrinth of over 300 kilometres of tunnels under the city, the Left Bank and the Right Bank. The cemetery covers only a small section of the tunnels - 1.7 kilometres. The tunnels are the remains of the limestone quarries, mined for the construction of Paris' buildings and bridges.

The Catacombes de Paris are an underground ossuary. The official name for the catacombs is
"L' Ossuaire Municipal". Skeletons from the Innocents and other cemeteries were transported here at the end of the 18 century. It holds the remains of about 6 million Parisians. They are the bones of the dead exhumed from mass graves. The bones are stacked neatly in various caverns creating kilometres of walls of human bones. Quite eerie!

The Cemetery of the Innocent which was close to Église Saint Eustace, in the district of "Les Halles" (this is the area we lived in last year), and had been used for nearly 10 centuries and had become the origin of infection for the people who lived in the area. The bones were transported and deposited in the Catacombs between 1786 and 1788. All existing parish cemeteries within the then city limits were then condemned and all Paris'dead were transferred to the Catacombs.

New cemeteries were created, which was then,  outside the central area of Paris:
Montmartre Cemetery
Père Luchaise Cemetery
and later, Montparnasse Cemetery.

Above the entrance into the catacomb area there is a sign":
Ärrête! Cést ici L'Empire de la Mort
Halt! This is the Empire of the Dead

Once inside the catacombes there is no flash photography.

To go out of the catacombes, we had to walk up a very narrow stone spiral stairwell of just over 80 steps. Not very enjoyable at all. Geoffrey had to pull me up the last 10 steps!
We were then a few metro stations away from where we started the tour.
After outings like this and being right on lunchtime we generally give ourselves a bit of a treat.
Today, it was lunch at:
Le Zeyer
62 rue d' Alésia 75014
90 euros for 2 courses, 3 drinks each and a coffee.
Very good.