Catacombs

Yesterday, I went to the catacombs which are tunnels under Paris filled with 6 million peoples' bones. It was so creepy! I was scared waiting in line, and the first part of the tunnel had no bones but it was a small walking space and dark so I was getting scared and claustrophobic. The rest of the tunnels with the bones weren't as scary as I thought it would be, but walking around and thinking about what I was actually looking at (millions of dead peoples' remains who died hundreds of years ago who had loved ones and jobs and what would they think of the world now?) creeped me out. There were signs every where that said don't use a flash to preserve the bones. But I'm lucky I got any good pictures at all because it was so dark down there. One of my friends used a flash and a French man ran up to her and pushed her and yelled "Pas du flash!" in her face. Excuse me, don't push my friends and yell at them in a dark tunnel. So rude. But other than that scare right at the beginning, I had a great time! 

From the pictures below, it might look like the tunnels were well lit, but they weren't! Sometimes it was really hard to see where I was stepping because there were little lights only every once in a while and without the flash, I had to get really close to the light with my camera to be able to see anything through the lens. I'm surprised that they turned out so well. 

 This is the view of the view from the line waiting to go in. A lion! We waited for an hour. 

This was above the door that went to the bones section. 

Literally translates to: "Order! It is here the empire of the dead" 

A heart made out of skulls. Presh.

Like I said before, it is a creepy place, but also sad to think that these were once people. Naturally my friends and I whispered I guess to be respectful? I don't know. But not only to the people who had passed away, but also respectful to the other people who paid to come see the catacombs. There was a large group of people who passed us and they were talking so loud, I heard a few of them talking about how they thought some of the people died, and pretending to look for their family members among the piles of bones. I thought it was rude. And so did the couple behind me and my friends. 

There were signs like this throughout the whole thing. A lot of them translated to things like respect the dead or had dates on them like the one above and I think that was the date the bones were moved down into the tunnels.

"Dareal Street"

Since the underground tunnel system is so big, the "streets" have names. 

There was a gift shop outside of the entrance with skull things every where! I bought a magnet that says I survived the Catacombs.