Welcome to the "The Jones Kingdom": Paris Part IV / Catacombs

Next on the list was the Catacombs.

The Catacombs of Paris or Catacombes de Paris are an underground ossuary in Paris, France. Located south of the former city gate (the "Barrière d'Enfer" at today's Place Denfert-Rochereau), the ossuary holds the remains of about 6 million people and fills a renovated section of caverns and tunnels that are the remains of Paris' stone mines. Opened in the late 18th century, the underground cemetery became a tourist attraction on a small scale from the early 19th century, and has been open to the public on a regular basis from 1867. Following an incident of vandalism, they were closed to the public in September 2009 and reopened 19 December of the same year.

The official name for the catacombs is l'Ossuaire Municipal. Although this cemetery covers only a small section of underground tunnels comprising "les carrières de Paris" ("the quarries of Paris"), Parisians today often refer to the entire tunnel network as "the catacombs".

Read more about the catecombs.....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catacombs_of_Paris

The line wasn't really that long when we arrive. But we still had to wait about two hours to get to the entrance. The kids jumped the fence to play for a bit. Paper Rock Scissors anyone?

Kayleena entertained us while we waited.

This is only about 1/3 of the line. Good thing we were near the front from this view!

The Catacombs entry is in the western pavilion of Paris' former Barrière d'Enfer city gate. After descending a narrow spiral stone stairwell of 19 meters to the darkness and silence broken only by the gurgling of a hidden aqueduct channelling local sources away from the area, and after passing through a long (about 1.5 km) and twisting hallway of mortared stone, visitors find themselves before a sculpture that existed from a time before this part of the mines became an ossuary, a model of France's Port-Mahon fortress created by a former Quarry Inspector.

Soon after, they would find themselves before a stone portal, the ossuary entry, with the inscription Arrête, c'est ici l'empire de la Mort ('Stop, this is the empire of Death').

Beyond begin the halls and caverns of walls of carefully arranged bones. Some of the arrangements are almost artistic in nature, such as a heart-shaped outline in one wall formed with skulls embedded in surrounding tibias; another is a round room whose central pillar is also a carefully created 'keg' bone arrangement. Along the way one would find other 'monuments' created in the years before catacomb renovations, such as a source-gathering fountain baptised "La Samaritaine" because of later-added engravings. There are also rusty gates blocking passages leading to other 'unvisitable' parts of the catacombs – many of these are either un-renovated or were too un-navigable for regular tours.