What Can Be Done With 3 or 4 Hours

I thought I might go and visit a friend in Lyon for a couple of days before heading to England and then heading back to Canada. But I was finding Europe in general and Paris in particular way too expensive. Then when I went to book a flight to London from Lyon, I saw this great deal. Only 79 pounds. And they said on the website to look at that price. It was the final price, and it included all the fees and taxes. The person booking wouldn't find pay any more than what they saw on the right hand side. Oh, but wait a moment. What? You want to take some luggage? Oh well, that will cost 11 pounds more. And oh, you're going to pay with a credit card? Well, that's more still. And... Well I guess it's not really true about the first price then, is it? You morons. And liars.

And I decided to not go to Lyon. I apologized to my friend as I bought a ticket on the Eurostar train under the English Channel to London instead. I bought my ticket for 1 in the afternoon for the day after my second day with the Museum Pass.

That left me with a final morning in Paris to use for some purpose. I had a couple of options. I could have tried to get to the top of the Eiffel Tower. I could also have sought out the Catacombs of Paris. And when I got up and asked at the front desk of the hostel, a further suggestion was made to visit Montmartre, a church on the hill that had a place where artists sit in the park and paint. They all sounded quite interesting and I was suddenly wishing that I could have had the full day. But I had made my choice about when to move on and now I had to make this new choice as a result.

Given that the elevators at the Eiffel Tower had malfunctioned the night before, I didn't want to chance having another interruption if I tried to get to the top before needing to be at the train station. So I decided against the tower. Montmartre sounded intriguing and I would love to have gone and watched artists being artists. The church also sounded nice. But in the end, I really wanted to see the catacombs. I have heard much about them from different sources. I asked the guy at the front desk and he told me I would have just enough time to have a go at that. So I went and had a go.

I made my way to the appropriate station in the Paris metro system and then more or less stumbled on the entrance to the catacombs. It wasn't exactly hidden, but there were no great big signs announcing the presence of the catacombs either.

There was a guided tour for the catacombs, but it was entirely in French and I wasn't sure if I really wanted to be working that hard at keeping up. My comprehension is still pretty good in French, but it would still be a lot of work. I opted for taking the audio guide instead.

And so I went down, down, and down. And like the towers at Notre Dame, and when I visited the Arc de Triomphe, it was spiral staircases that took me down into the depths.

At the bottom, I began to learn about the catacombs, their history and development. The Romans came to town almost a couple thousand years ago. And they built a city called Letitia. But when they built the city, they needed building materials. So did the later inhabitants of the city. They found very good materials below the city. In ancient times, the area where Paris is now was at the bottom of the sea. The bottoms of seas collect dead animals and plants and turn it into limestone over long periods of time. Such was the case with the land mass on which Paris has been built. And the Romans and those who came after exploited it.

They dug out the limestone from under the ground and used it to build on the top of the ground. And they continued to do that. The problem was that they dug out the limestone from right beneath the city. In the end it became a bit like a game of Jenga. It just came to the point where they were taking a risk of taking one too many pieces and the whole thing would come tumbling down. In fact, there were several subsidences over the years where great sinkholes opened up as the caverns beneath collapsed.

A government department was set up to go and investigate the catacombs and shore them up, make them safe, and ultimately make the city above safer, too. While doing the survey one of the surveyors decided to add to the environment in the catacombs.  He carved some beautiful sculptures.  Unfortunately, they were among his last acts.  During some portion of his carving activities, a cave in buried him alive.  But his legacy lives on for visitors.

Meanwhile, there was another problem developing up above. The cemeteries were overflowing. They were getting piled up with dead bodies. Someone came up with the idea of using the empty space below to hold the dead. So they made it so. Cemeteries were emptied of their bones and the bones were brought down to the catacombs and stored. They were stacked and appropriate tributes were given to them. However, for most, if not all, the identities have been lost to time.

It's a fascinating place, deep under the city of Paris. And it took exactly the right amount of time. I arrived back at the hostel just in time to pick up my stuff and head to the train station to head to London.