Today I started out strong by getting on the wrong metro
line. Fortunately, it was in the right direction
to visit a different site that I had wanted to visit later in the day. So I reordered my schedule and started my day
by visiting Père Lachaise Cemetary.
There I saw the final resting places of Eugène Delacroix, Sir Oscar
Wilde, Jim Morrison, Beaudelaire, and several other famous persons.
After that I took the tram to the Place d’Italie, and then
walked to the Butte-aux-Cailles, a quiet, pleasant neighborhood where I bought
a sandwich and ate lunch in a park.
After that, I took the metro back to Montparnasse in order to visit the
Catacombs of Paris.
The Catacombs should be on everybody’s list of places to
visit in Paris. Deep underground, it is
a chilling experience. Underneath Paris
are miles upon miles of tunnels and quarries.
The Romans in the colony of Lutetia mined the limestone beneath the
modern city in large, open-air quarries.
In the Middle Ages, the mining went on underground for many centuries
before they stopped. Unfortunately, the
city forgot about these mines until the 18th Century, when the
tunnels had eroded to the point where parts of the city had begun to cave into
them. In response, Louis XVI created a
special bureau with the task of mapping out the extensive tunnels and
reinforcing the weak points to prevent future cave-ins. Not too long later, the city discovered that the
primary cemetery in the middle of Paris was beginning to become overcrowded and
pose a health risk to the neighborhoods next to it. Somebody then had the creative solution to
turn the abandoned tunnels into an ossuary, and so over the next hundred years,
the central cemeteries were cleared out and the remains were brought down below
ground. During the Second Empire, the
idea was had to carefully pile the bones into organized files and allow
tourists to journey down to see the crypt.
That part of the tour is extremely chilling. At the entrance to the ossuary, there is a foreboding
doorway with the following carved into the top of the arch (translated): “Stop! For this is the Empire of the Dead.” It is very eerie walking through the rows
upon rows of bones, with skulls staring emptily out from the piles. Carved into the rock walls are inscriptions
on the subject of death: poetry and biblical verse. There is a very real stench of death
pervading these tunnels. It reminded me
of the part in Return of the King when Aragorn, Gimili, and Legolas venture
into the Paths of the Dead.
The catacombs were also used by the French Resistance during
the occupation of Paris. It allowed them
to move around unseen to all parts of the city.
Because the Germans did not know about the catacombs, the Resistance was
able have the headquarters there.
After seeing the catacombs and needing some daylight, I went
to the famous Palais Garnier, the Paris Opera.
Fantastically ornate, everything is gilded: candelabras, chandeliers, columns,
statues, anything that can be gilded is gilded.
I can imagine why a phantom would want to haunt such a place. I was also reminded that in the novel by
Gaston Leroux, the Opera Ghost’s lair was in the Catacombs beneath the Opera. The opera house is named for its designer and
architect, Charles Garnier. It was
originally called the Salle des Capucines,
after the major boulevard that runs past it, but everyone in Paris simply
called it after the name of its designer due to its extreme opulence.
After seeing the Opera Garnier, I took the metro to the
other opera in Paris, the newer Opéra Bastille.
Built over the site of the demolished Bastile fortress-Prison, it now
hosts most of the operas in Paris. The
Garnier is nowadays mostly used only by the Paris Ballet. The Opéra Bastille is much more modern in its
architectural design, and far less opulent, but it is still neat. Not as gorgeous as the Garnier, but it would
be hard feat indeed to match that.
After that, I simply wandered the Marais for an hour or so
until it got dark. I enjoyed window
shopping among the small boutiques. It
was a very pleasant way to spend my last full day in Paris. Tomorrow I ship out for London.
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