Trip to the Catacombs of Paris 💀

Last year I took a trip to France and visited the Catacombes de Paris.

The Catacombs hold the remains of more than 6 million people in part of the ancient Mines of Paris tunnel network.
Nightly transferrals during the years 1786 - 1788 relocated the skeletal remains from existing, overflowing and crumbling cemeteries to the reinforced tunnels, with more remains added during later years.

Down we go...

"The Quarrymans's foot bath"

This journey down is long and even in November, it's so warm I have to remove my jacket and scarf.

The tunnels are small and quite cramped, thankfully it seemed to be a quiet day for tourists and we had most of the place to ourselves.

The deeper we went, the lower the ceilings got - it had a very unsettling 'Alice in Wonderland' feel to it... At the deepest point we are at the equivalent of 5 stories beneath the surface.

Once we arrived in the main tunnels and chambers we felt very different. It's dark, damp and with the macarbre sight of human remains, stacked perfectly into walls and various designs, it did raise the hairs on the back of my neck.

It's difficult to describe how we felt walking through here, it's certainly a strange feeling, exacerbated by the feeling of being watched by 6 million sets of empty eyes...

I've tried to describe this experience, but my words and pictures do not capture what is really there.

It's morbid yes, but also beautiful.