Catacombes

On Saturday, Chase, Austin, Tyler, and I took a trip to the Catacombes. It's somewhere I have wanted to go for a while, so I was very excited. For those of you who don't know, the catacombes are an underground ossuary. A maze of tunnels 65 feet below the city streets are filled with human bones from the 1800's.

When we arrived at the Catacombes there was a long line that we had to wait in. (It was the longest line I have had to wait in since arriving in Paris) After the 45 minute wait we were finally at the entrance to the Catacombes. Prior to entering, I had not really thought that it would be very scary but after desending the spiral staircase and entering the tunnal system, I immediatly noticed a creepier atmosphere. After descending through the tunnels for a while, you finally enter the beginning of the bones. It was one of the strangest things I have ever seen in my life. Thousands of human bones were right in front of me. You could literally touch them. The bones were not just thrown in piles carelessly, they were "gently" placed in strange designes and all the skulls were always in rows.

It was about a 45 minute trip through the small portion of the Catacombes that are open to the public. The actual tunnels span for miles and there are over 6 million bodies located inside of them. Even though the trip to the Catacombes was slightly morbid, I really enjoyed seeing a different side of Paris. I'm so happy that we deicided to visit them!

Upon exiting the Catacombes, we were in a different part of town than from where we entered. We walked down the block and to our surprise there was a wonderful pet shop with windows full of adorable puppies! It was a very good mood lifter after a depressing trip to the Catacombes. After awing at the puppies for a while, we continued to wonder. I guess you could say that we were "lost", so we did what any Perisian would do....we stopped at a cafe and had an espresso! After enjoying our beverage for awhile we continued on and easily found a metro station. So I have come to the conclusion that you can never really be "lost" in Paris because there is always a metro station right around the coner.