The Catacombs... and other things to do in Paris

Things are just so much harder here. First there was the ticket machine at the CDG train station that I couldn’t understand, then it was trying to figure out the RER (comparable to Boston’s commuter rails), and – God! – trying to navigate the streets here is worthless; I’m always getting lost. But that’s half the fun of it: everything – and I do mean EVERYTHING – is an adventure. (Like when you go to shower and realize you have to pee too but the toilet is located in another room down the hall?!)

Anyways, exploring Paris was fun. It’s something I always enjoy doing; getting lost on those beautiful streets and trying to find my way back to wherever I’m supposed to be… stopping for a quick espresso whenever my legs get weak.


Every time I come to Paris, I want to see the Catacombs. I remember learning about them in my 8th grade French class and being ultimately intrigued. An awful stench spread across the city in the late 18th century, and people quickly realized the root was the decaying bodies in Paris’s many cemeteries. So what did they do? They expanded the web of tunnels under the city and threw all the bones down there, saving Paris and creating a maze of death.


However every time I come to Paris – like so many other things in France – its closed with no explanation. (Hell, when people here don’t feel like working… they just don’t.) This time when I arrived in the 14th and saw a man outside the OPEN door to the catacombs (You can imagine my surprise!), I didn’t hesitate: I took all my bags (which combined probably weigh as much as I do… and that ain’t pretty) and rushed in. 3€ ("youth rate") later, I was hurrying down a never-ending spiral staircase. Every so often out of the corner of my eyes I thought I’d see the bottom… only to round the corner and find more stairs. The air grew thinner. The light, dimmer. And finally, I was at the entrance to the “empire of the dead.”




It took 15 months to create and has served many purposes since. Today it’s a tourist attraction; before the French Revolution, the Commander Artois used to 'make parties' here; during WWII, the Resistance Française used the tunnels for headquarters; countless Parisians hold private parties below ground; and the catacombs often served as a sanctuary for prostitutes chased off the streets (hence why one area is called the “Crypt of Passion”). There are between 3 and 7 million corpses (the combined dead of 400 years) below the earth in these walls, and what’s even more shocking is that the creators took the time to lay out these decaying and sickly bodies in an artful manner (gotta love the French). The bones and skulls create crosses and designs in the walls.




After walking roughly 7 kilometers/4 miles (the entire system is around 300km/186 miles long) with my camera and heavy bags, I climbed another winding coil of concrete (again around 100 stairs) to fresh air. The catacombs' exit dumps you on the streets of Paris quite far from the Cimetière du Montparnasse, but I was determined. There I went (again) through the thick fog and drizzle of rain.

It’s just amazing. Never have I ever seen so many amazing tombs crammed into such a beautiful place! I paid my respects to Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, with whom I have developed an intense intrigue after reading their biographies. (Who couldn’t love Sartre, with his famous line: “Hell is other people”?!)