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This is my last full day in Paris. It began with a visit to the catacombs. In the guide book, this was described as an eerie place yet fascinating. They removed thousands upon thousands of human remains from graveyards and piled them deep below the city. It was hard to imagine this and I needed to see it for myself.
We arrived in good time. It was suppose to open at 10 and the line up was already nearly a block long at ten to ten. We purchased our tickets and made our journey into the dark cool caverns of Paris.
The spiral staircase seemed to be endless as walked down, down, down. Just when you think you are at the end, yet another turn and more steps. It seemed to make me dizzy and I had to pause for a moment to reorient myself. Finally, the bottom. The long, narrow, stone tunnels were dimmly lit and continued on and on with twists and turns every few metres.
The odd etchings on the cavern walls were mysterious and containing a combination of numbers and letters as if they were some ancient code. We walked and walked, hoping to see these amazing bone structures at every turn. Then they came into sight.
The neatly stacked arm bones, leg bones and skulls, formed walls upon walls of human artwork. It is very disturbing to see the bones used in such a way, yet very ingenious. At first I thought it would only be a few chambers of bone walls but I was very wrong. The walls filled the tunnels for over a kilometer (at least). We walked back through more tunnels, climbed stories of spiral staircases before making our way out into the world again. It was so bright, our eyes needed to adjust to the light. The taste of iron or rusty metal was left in our mouths.
I took several pictures and I hope you enjoy them. This was one creepy experience. Imagine this place as a haunted house?
We walked through Luxumburg Park, ate lunch then made our way to the Arc de Triompe. The walk was long, but luckily I wore comfortable shoes.
The monument was spectacular. It was much larger than I anticipated. There were crowds of people waiting to climb the stairs to get a wonderful 360 view of the city. We passed because we had had enough of line ups and stairs for one day.
We made our way back to the hostel and ate. I packed my bags so I would be ready for my train ride to Spain.
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