Visiting the Catacombs

Visiting the Catacombs of Paris is something highly recommended to tourists. Seeing as I am not the best tourist around, I am finally getting to see a lot of the touristy things that I have been passing by for three months. Having friends visiting this past weekend because it was our Thanksgiving break, we decided that we had to go see the Catacombs. We braved the chilly weather to stand in line for an hour and a half before we finally made it to the entrance. It seemed that everyone else had the same idea as us.

The Catacombs is an underground ossuary that holds the remains of 6 million people we learned. The area used to have stone mines and you can actually see the marks that the miners made. In the 18^th century, there was an incident where Le cimetière des Innocents was overcrowded and posed a risk to the community so the rest of cemeteries in Paris were closed down.

As for my visit to the Catacombs, let’s just say that I was reminded of the fragility of life in the cramped, underground space with skulls and other bones that were part of human beings. It didn’t help that they had all these depressing quotes about death and how short our time on earth is. It was worse than a cemetery because there you have mausoleums and tombs that may be separating you from the fact that these are resting places for the dead. One thing I didn’t understand was why they had to put up signs reminding people not to touch the bones or try leaving with them. People have obviously done both and that’s why the signs are there, but it seems like common sense that you wouldn’t be touching the skulls or taking remains with you. The Catacombs may be a tourist attraction, but it’s still a place where the dead are buried.

Here are some of my photos from the visit. (Excuse the poor quality of the photos. We couldn't use flash and it was quite dark)