Catacombs of Paris

I did it.


And I will NEVER do it again. Mum... I inherited your claustrophobia gene! Seriously dark, dank, narrow, cool/creepy (depending on your view) low ceilinged, spiral stair cased, crazy assed shit! There were bones neatly stacked for a good kilometer or so! I would have taken more shots if I wasn't preocupied with keeping my claustrophobia from kicking into a full on panic attack!

Bonefinder... I did it for you! I know you'd never forgive me for walking down 6 flights of stairs only to turn tail and run back up without seeing all zee bones!

If it wasn't for 4 loverly strangers who literally walked and talked me through it, I would have never conquered my fear of being the one tourist out of the tens of thousands who visit every year that gets lost and trapped in the tunnels that are 6 stories below the city. Seriously, this is what i was thinking as other tourists filed past me with big smiles on their faces saying "woah, so cool!". Flight of the fight or flight scenerio kicked in as I got to the bottom of the winding, narrow staircase! I wanted the fuck outta there! So much so that I wasn't able to appreciate anything until about 1/3 of the way in. Apparently, I thought I was the one person who would get trapped down below the city in the tunnels that run under all of Paris for hundreds of kilmometers. Used by the French Resistance during World War 2, anti-royalists during the French Revolution, minned out by the ancient Romans to supply the limestone to build the temples, walls and homes and still used today to throw killer underground raves... and they all survived! But I somehow had convinced myself that I would be The One that never comes out. Yea, big ups to Dawn the American, Marius the Swiss, Markus the Romanian and extra special love to Mihai the Parisian via Zurich and Romania!!!!

Here's the shots I got. Love 'em cause I aint never going back!

Grafiti is really timeless... and everywhere

Blury, but proof I was there!

Bones staked as high as I am tall... no height jokes!

Yup, they are real!

This was the "big" tunnel. 4 feet wide, 6 feet high. Damp, dark. Giddyup!