La Mort

[gavin]

Yeah, ok so this is a bit creepy, but whatever. I've had these pictures uploaded to Photobucket for ages and never done anything with them, so here you go!

I took these about a year ago, at the end of my last visit to Paris. Basically, I'd already "done" most of the city either earlier in the trip or on my visit there the year before (I could put pictures up, but it's nothing that you haven't seen already, but if anyone's interested, just ask: The Louvre, Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame etc.).

It was a miserable, cloudy, rainy day, so I decided to go to the Paris Catacombs, which isn't really on the regular tourist trail. In the 1700s, as Paris became more populated and more dead bodies needed to be buried, there was a massive public health issue because of the decomposition of dead bodies in mass graves within the city, with the drinking water becoming contaminated.

It was decided to close down these cemeteries, but the bodies had to be relocated somewhere. A series of old stone quarry tunnels was used, and the remains of around 6,000,000 people were moved there in the 1790s

They only allow 200 people in at a time, which sounds like a lot, but the tunnels are really long. Even though it was full (there's turnstiles at either end to count the people going in and out) I only saw a couple of other people and most of the time was completely alone in there.

No flash photography is allowed, so I didn't get too many pictures unfortunately. The 2km walk starts by descending a narrow spiral staircase which leads to to the start of the old quarry tunnels. The catacombs haven't even started at this point, but it's still creepy as all ****.

After walking through here for about 5 minutes, you get to the actual entrance of the catacombs:

Stop: Here is the empire of the dead.

The rest of the tunnels are filled floor to ceiling with bones, some of them arranged quite artistically, and the whole place is very dimly lit with plenty of dripping water for added effect.

It was really creepy, but strangely, after you get used to being surrounded by millions of dead bodies, it starts to feel really peaceful and relaxing.

It took about an hour from start to finish, and after I left I walked across the road to a much more modern cemetery, Montparnasse and found these:

Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir - authors/philosophers

Serge Gainsbourg - Musician (most famous here for Je T'aime ... Moi Non Plus)

Samuel Becket. Never really liked his stuff to be honest though

Eugene Ionesco, one of my favourite playwrights

By this point, I was quite enjoying the celebrity grave CRED spotting, had no immediate plans, so went to another cemetery in Montmartre. THE most over the top, FAB grave ever:

Dalida. She was an absolutely huge star over most of Europe (not the UK though), who killed herself in the 1980s, after a husband and two boyfriends had already done the same thing. She's amazing:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfeCNvRPba4[/youtube]

I also saw this one:

Vaslav Nijinsky - dancer

and

Jaques Offenbach - Composer (famous for Orpheus of the Underworld, featuring what is now known as The Can-Can.

Next up was Pere Lachaise Cemetery, home of:

Georges Bizet - composer of Carmen

Balzac - author

Delacroix - artist

Chopin - composer

No idea, but I loved this tomb: gorgeous and creepy as **** at the same time.

Marcel Marceau - **** ing mime "artist". Load of bollocks.

Jim Morrison - Lead singer of The Doors

Edith Piaf - LEGEND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oscar Wilde - professional homo who did a bit of AMAZING writing.

And thus concludes my rather sick/twisted day out!

 

[Hixee]

Is the graffiti on Oscar Wilde's grave there on purpose or was it actually vandalised?

The catacombs look creepy as hell, going on your own must have been quite scary at first!

It looks cool, I always like reading about these sort of 'off-the-beaten-track' things.

 

[gavin]

^All the little smudge marks are from where people have kissed it. It's become some sort of weird tradition for people to put fresh lipstick on, then kiss the grave to leave prints on it. There is a sign that tells people not to do it, but it's still covered and there's the graffiti as well. Apparently it gets a good cleaning every year or so, but people still do it.

 

[Hixee]

Oh right! I thought it was just loads of scrawl. Not so bad then, but still and odd tradition.

 

[kimahri]

I just got reminded of the Anon who stole a skull for there and stuck his dick in it. That was a hilarious thread.

I would like to visit that actually (with out the skull stealing). The other catacombs place that's off limits looks awesomly creepy.

 

[Ian]

I do prefer the more "off the beaten tourist" track attractions. I never knew Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison were burried in France.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[Jake]

Ooh, I didn't realise they had these in Paris.

They had some in Kiev (but long as big), and we had to buy a candle to take through. There wern't any skulls on display or anything though, just the tombs.

Everyone who went to Sicily last semester was banging on about the ones there too, apparently they were pretty gruesome.

Love a bit of death to spice up a trip <3.

 

[LiveForTheLaunch]

Haha, most people don't know this about me but I'm actually morbid as all heck. Ask me anything about any method of burial/cremation/any of the other weird ways of getting rid of bodies, decomposition.. Yeah, and I'll probably know it. So as you might expect, I did like this trip report a lot .

What I do wonder about the catacombs is the condition the bodies were in when they were first put down there. Were they already skeletonized or were they actual heads and limbs with skin on them? It's really creepy down there, that's for sure, and I've seen a lot of programs on it so I do know a bit about it. I didn't know it was so big though, like I knew the tunnels were long and stuff but to have 200 people down there and to only see a few is pretty insane.

As for the random cemetery hopping, I didn't know so many famous people were buried in Paris. I use to go cemetery hopping too, for fun, but not to famous graves.. I'd just walk through cemeteries for fun back in the day, which is odd but there's just an interesting aura surrounding any kind of burial place or whatever.

Good report!