The Catacombs

Stop! This is the empire of the dead.

Its way cooler looking in French, don't ya think?

Remind me to translate this one later... if you try hard enough, you can probably figure out that it says who ordered the catacombs to be filled with bodies and when and by which department... blah blah blah.
























Just as I was becoming jaded with Paris, Danielle had this brilliant idea of going to the catacombs... it had never even occurred to me... I'm not even sure I was aware that they existed. It was great! A much needed break from all those museums and churches... I recommend everybody visit this place.





























At some point, somebody decided to empty out all the cemetaries in Paris and deposit the bones into underground quarries. Stone was removed from here for centuries. Some of it was used to build Notre Dame.
















After a bit, Danielle and I began to wonder where they put all the other bones. All we saw were skulls and femurs... we would surely recognize a hand or a spine if we saw one. We determined that they simply built a wall of skulls and femurs and just threw everything else behind it. When you looked at the top of the stack in the back, you could see that they weren't very tidy when they were putting stuff back there.
















They would move the bodies at night in horse drawn carriages. Priests would walk beside it while chanting prayers. Could you imagine how creepy it would have been to see that? Just think, you're in your overpriced room...looking out from the balcony, its late, you can't sleep... and then you see these carriages led by priests and torches. Who knows? Maybe it was just a common thing back then?
















Bones and more bones.

















When you leave, they actually check your bags to make sure you didn't steal any bones. But honestly, the check wasn't *that* thorough. So long as you weren't greedy and tried to steal a skull or something, you probably could have gotten away with it.
















This is the ceiling in one of the parts that was about to collapse. They have to monitor the catacombs pretty regularly to make sure cars and other objects don't fall through. This particular area has been reinforced with several types of concrete and is now considered safe.