03 May 2011 – Paris (Tuesday)

Today the sun is shining and it looks like it will be a good day.  So we are going to go to a couple more attractions.  Of course before we head out we need to confirm which metro lines we need to take to get to the locations but that is Wes’ job and he does a great job of it.  As for me, well I am still doing some research on a place to stay in Amsterdam for a week and in London for two weeks.  I am checking out apartment options.  Such fun!!!

How do you feel about the election?  We had to get our news from the internet since it is not available on TV here (guess Canadian politics is not big here in France...hmmmm wonder why?)  Oh well we missed all the excitment at home and the endless political commercials.  Guess we will survive.

We decided to head off to the catacombs first.  The Catacombs of Paris or Catacombes de Paris are a famous underground ossuary.  Located south of the former city gate, the ossuary holds the remains of about 6 million people and fills a renovated section of caverns and tunnels that are the remains of Paris' stone mines.  The Mines of Paris comprise a number of abandoned, subterranean mines under Paris connected together by galleries.  Together, the mines and galleries run for approximately 280 kilometers.  Obviously the area we visited today is a very small part of the potential and you can imagine the potential for getting lost in that 280 km of interconnected tunnels and galleries.  Happy to say we followed the laid out path and did not get lost.

We arrived to find a line-up of people with the line-up going from the entrance around the square about ½ way.  While we waited in line we got to meet a couple of from Australia, currently living in London – Gavin and Lauren, - so the 1 ¾ wait did not seem too bad.  These two have a very interesting life and have done lots of travel so we enjoyed comparing notes.

The Catacombs entry is in the western pavilion of Paris' former Barrière d'Enfer city gate.  After descending a narrow spiral stone stairwell of 19 meters to the darkness (and try not to feel dizzy with the circular stairs) and silence broken only by the gurgling of a hidden aqueduct channelling local sources away from the area, and after passing through a long (about 1.5 km) and twisting hallway of mortared stone, we found looking at a sculpture that existed from a time before this part of the mines became an ossuary, a model of France's Port-Mahon fortress created by a former Quarry Inspector.  Next we find an archway with an inscription above "Arrête, c'est ici l'empire de la Mort" ('Stop, this is the empire of Death').

Through this archway begins the tunnels and caverns of carefully arranged bones. Some of the arrangements are almost artistic in nature, such as a heart-shaped outline in one wall formed with skulls embedded in surrounding tibias; another is a round room whose central pillar is also a carefully created 'keg' bone arrangement. Along the way one would find other 'monuments' created in the years before catacomb renovations, such as a source-gathering fountain baptised "La Samaritaine" because of later-added engravings.   Also worthy of note are the rusty gates blocking passages leading to other 'unvisitable' parts of the catacombs.

Another feature that was interesting to see was the wells called “quarry foot baths”.  These wells were built by workers as a means to reach the ground water level.  Other monuments can be found throughout the catacombs and since most are identified in French we had some fun trying to figure out what was being said.  We are getting better but still find many words unknown.  In addition there are lots of plaques with verses along the tunnel.

In a cavern just before the exit stairway leading to a building on the rue Dareau (former 'rue des Catacombes') above, one could see an example of the Quarry Inspection's work in the rest of Paris' underground caverns: its roof is two 11-metre high domes of naturally degraded, but reinforced, rock; the dates painted into the highest point of each bear witness to what year the work to the collapsing cavern ceiling was done, and whether it has degraded since.  These "fontis" were the reason for a general panic in late-18th-century Paris, after several houses and roadways collapsed into previously unknown caverns below – sink holes.

We finally left the catacombs which was not a terrible a place as I had thought it could be.  However if you do not like to be deep down in the earth (approx. 20 meters) in tunnels with dampness all around you looking at human bones, don’t go there.

We then headed over to the Orsay Museum which involved another trip on the subway (we are getting good with the travelling on the metro I assure you) and another line-up to get in.  We have the Museum Pass which allows us access without going through the ticket line-up and even so we took about 45 minutes to get in.  The ticket line-up was even longer and slower so I am sure it would have taken more than double the time to get into the museum.  When we finally got in we learned that there could be no photography so we enjoyed walking around and looking at the paintings, sculptures, decorative arts, photographs (historical) and architecture.  We were impressed with some of the artwork of names we recognized like Monet, van Gogh, Renoir and many others.  We have never seen so many paintings in one place by some of these well known artists.  However I can not even begin to describe all that we saw so have gone to the internet to find pictures of some of what we saw and added them to the blog.  These are not my pictures so no one from the Museum Police squad can accuse me of taking pictures while visiting the museum.

After we finished the museum we decided to visit a café/bar that we had heard about.  The L’Imprevu Café is a gay bar and we decided that we needed to stop in a gay bar in Paris.  It was pleasant but since it was early (6 pm) the only ones there were groups heading home from the office.  We had a nice drink, talked to each other, and then headed home. I think the only one who could speak English was the staff so conversation with others was not possible.  We can now say we have had a drink at a gay bar in Paris but like everyone else – after a great day of touring we are not going to be staying up late.   We planned to head back to see the Eiffel Tower light up but that involves being in that area around 10 pm and generally we have no energy left by that time to get back on the metro and go down.   Maybe we will fit it in but not sure when since we leave in two days.