179.✓France–Paris catacombs.
I’ve always been fascinated with “memento moris” and the simple fact of a huge tunnel underneath Paris stuffed to the brim with upwards of 8 million dead bodies is historical, and it also puts in to perspective your own life. The reason this is on my bucket list is to experience a fascinating part of history and to look more inward and see that death is awaiting us all.
6-7 million – can you imagine that it is at least three times bigger than the city of Calgary, my home. It’s an unfathomable amount of people that is kept in the Paris catacombs, and as I keep wandering through and seeing hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of skulls and hip bones it doesn’t really put it in to context how many people are at rest down here. That is like a momento mori for my life, it’s something I’ll always remember. It seems like it’s a cross between a scene from a horror movie to maybe even worse – real life. But I didn’t notice that at first when I was waiting in line with Rachael.
As we were waiting in a line outside a nondescript building that says “Les catacombes” I laugh at myself now thinking about how normal this building was. You’re only allowed to have 200 people in the catacombs at the time and there’s a little counter in the corner to keep track. The screen was displaying 200 once we got in to the building so we had to wait for health and safety reasons. I definitely didn’t want to be a skeleton down there. After about ten minutes they say that we can go in so we wander through, push our tickets through and a nice little smiley face pops up on the screen of the door. I remember thinking to myself how cute it is and then just like with most my life there’s stairs… there’s always fucking stairs… We walk down 20 m into the catacombs of Paris. As we slowly start walking further and further down I start to notice that it’s getting cooler and damp, which makes sense I guess. Once we make it to the bottom we look at each other and give each other a kiss and start walking through.
It doesn’t begin with skulls. It doesn’t hit you in the face with them or with dead bodies around us, it’s just some historical plaques and tunnels with etchings on the side saying hold this tunnel is and the story behind it. As we walk through for about ten minutes we are enjoying that until we eventually approach an opening where there’s a big brown box stating the history of the catacombs, how it used to be used in the World War II French resistance; they would walk through the catacombs, defying the Nazis. And then through that room you get punched in the face with the idea of death – there’s hundreds and thousands of bones placed into different shapes and different angles and you’re not allowed to touch them.
So me and Rachael wander through slowly looking at all of the dead bodies. I’ve said this many times already but it is an unfathomable, it’s like being in the panda sanctuary in Chengdu, after you see the first panda it’s a downward progression you get numb to the feeling of seeing pandas. It’s the same thing with the skulls. They are even placed in hearts shapes on the wall! Eventually you just become numb and that’s what happened to me after about half an hour of wandering through. We eventually made it to the end of the catacombs and this is where we have to walk back up the stairs. Me and Rachael take the first step and start walking straight up in a huge spiral staircase eventually bringing us to some random street. We were about to walk through when a security guard stopped us and asked to check our bags just to make sure we didn’t steal any bones, as some dumbasses have tried in the past.
Reflecting on crossing this one off my bucket list – as were walking through the streets of Paris I realize how crazy it is how we’re all going to end up in that state, just skull and bones. It’s kind of depressing but it’s also very freeing.
I hope you guys enjoyed this post and remember to live your life to the fullest as we are all going to die one day!
179.✓France–Paris catacombs.
I’ve always been fascinated with “memento moris” and the simple fact of a huge tunnel underneath Paris stuffed to the brim with upwards of 8 million dead bodies is historical, and it also puts in to perspective your own life. The reason this is on my bucket list is to experience a fascinating part of history and to look more inward and see that death is awaiting us all.
6-7 million – can you imagine that it is at least three times bigger than the city of Calgary, my home. It’s an unfathomable amount of people that is kept in the Paris catacombs, and as I keep wandering through and seeing hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of skulls and hip bones it doesn’t really put it in to context how many people are at rest down here. That is like a momento mori for my life, it’s something I’ll always remember. It seems like it’s a cross between a scene from a horror movie to maybe even worse – real life. But I didn’t notice that at first when I was waiting in line with Rachael.
As we were waiting in a line outside a nondescript building that says “Les catacombes” I laugh at myself now thinking about how normal this building was. You’re only allowed to have 200 people in the catacombs at the time and there’s a little counter in the corner to keep track. The screen was displaying 200 once we got in to the building so we had to wait for health and safety reasons. I definitely didn’t want to be a skeleton down there. After about ten minutes they say that we can go in so we wander through, push our tickets through and a nice little smiley face pops up on the screen of the door. I remember thinking to myself how cute it is and then just like with most my life there’s stairs… there’s always fucking stairs… We walk down 20 m into the catacombs of Paris. As we slowly start walking further and further down I start to notice that it’s getting cooler and damp, which makes sense I guess. Once we make it to the bottom we look at each other and give each other a kiss and start walking through.
It doesn’t begin with skulls. It doesn’t hit you in the face with them or with dead bodies around us, it’s just some historical plaques and tunnels with etchings on the side saying hold this tunnel is and the story behind it. As we walk through for about ten minutes we are enjoying that until we eventually approach an opening where there’s a big brown box stating the history of the catacombs, how it used to be used in the World War II French resistance; they would walk through the catacombs, defying the Nazis. And then through that room you get punched in the face with the idea of death – there’s hundreds and thousands of bones placed into different shapes and different angles and you’re not allowed to touch them.
So me and Rachael wander through slowly looking at all of the dead bodies. I’ve said this many times already but it is an unfathomable, it’s like being in the panda sanctuary in Chengdu, after you see the first panda it’s a downward progression you get numb to the feeling of seeing pandas. It’s the same thing with the skulls. They are even placed in hearts shapes on the wall! Eventually you just become numb and that’s what happened to me after about half an hour of wandering through. We eventually made it to the end of the catacombs and this is where we have to walk back up the stairs. Me and Rachael take the first step and start walking straight up in a huge spiral staircase eventually bringing us to some random street. We were about to walk through when a security guard stopped us and asked to check our bags just to make sure we didn’t steal any bones, as some dumbasses have tried in the past.
Reflecting on crossing this one off my bucket list – as were walking through the streets of Paris I realize how crazy it is how we’re all going to end up in that state, just skull and bones. It’s kind of depressing but it’s also very freeing.
I hope you guys enjoyed this post and remember to live your life to the fullest as we are all going to die one day!
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