After months of work, the renovated Catacombs of Paris will reopen

After five months of conservation work and to modernize the experience, public access to the Paris Catacombs will restart next Wednesday. This underground environment integrates bones of more than 6 million people that have been deposited at the site for centuries, with works of art created in different eras. It is expected that 2,000 tourists and the return of cataphiles (lovers of the mystery that it still holds) will attend every day.

Museums of Paris developed the improvement of technical facilities at the heritage site, to receive more than 600 thousand visitors annually. It was reported that a new “scenery will enhance the bone walls and reveal previously unknown details, while a high-quality immersive audio experience, via headphones, will enrich the tour.”

Isabelle Knafou, administrator of the venue, explained to the AFP agency that the aim is to “immerse visitors in a unique sensory experience, like the one experienced here, in the bowels of Paris.”

The visit is divided into a tour of the old quarries where the limestone was extracted to build the capital and a tour of the municipal ossuary, which houses the remains of millions of Parisians who died between the 10th and 18th centuries, moved there starting in 1780. The site has been open to the public since 1809.

Knafou highlighted that they also seek to protect spaces that have become part of the site’s identity, such as galleries covered in graffiti.

The official space known as the Paris Catacombs, considered the largest underground ossuary in the world, extends 1,500 meters in length at 20 meters deep, with controlled access. There is an even more extensive network of galleries in the quarries from which the material to build the city was extracted, which also contain a treasure of artistic creations.

parallel city

Because the subsoil of Paris was weakened by the tunnels, sections of streets collapsed in the 18th century. Consolidation work was then carried out, entrusted to the General Inspection of Quarries. This gave rise to a kind of parallel city with the placement of plaques with the names of the roads that more or less correspond on the surface: rue Vercingetorix, rue of Alesia, boulevard Jourdan…

According to various journalistic investigations, this part would exceed hundreds of kilometers. Access is prohibited and the difficulty of exploring it is reserved for those who are passionate about the catacombs, known as cataphiles.

The images show the cavities, darkness, long corridors or narrow and earthy entrances, those with rock floors and water currents, a whole variation of formations. Sounds sound reverberant or muffled, a particular way in closed spaces. Sometimes, surrounded by bones thrown haphazardly into deep wells.

Patrick Baud took a tour of those narrow enclosures with closed walls, some flooded by crystal clear water, which can be risky and lead to fines. Broadcast on the channel of the French company Brut, it shows the culture and the historical, artistic and even geological treasures that it preserves.

Interviewed for this document, the cataphilous Louise relates that you can find bunkers from the Second World War, made by the resistance, collaborationists and Germans. In other nooks, since the 18th century lie a large part of the remains originally buried in the then overflowing cemeteries of the city. There are also walls where you can see small fossilized snails from when this territory was the seabed, millions of years ago.

She added: “When I am underground, I feel serene, at peace, I feel good. For me, it is also the largest natural place in Paris. We are surrounded by stones… So it may not seem like nature to everyone, but it is.”

Another anonymous cataloger explains that “you can come here in search of tranquility, but also to have fun, see friends. All this creates a great community, with very different people, all united by this passion. We are isolated from the outside world, we don’t have our phones and we stop being connected.”

The catacombs show the traces of those who have visited them for centuries. In some you can see a charcoal drawing made during the revolution of 1848. This unusual art museum contains sculptures, such as a golem that supports the roof in the place known as El Cielo, frescoes and paintings from various periods.

Two of the most famous works are a magnificent reproduction of La gran ola de Kanagawaby Katsushika Hokusai, and one from The Island of the Dead, by Arnold Böcklin. At the foot of it there is a plaque with a verse and palindrome from Virgil: “We go around at night and are consumed by fire” (We toss and turn in the night and are consumed by fire).

Besides, in the video Under the cobblestones of Paris, a secret worldwhich Jean-François Bélanger made for Radio Canada International, visits that space between adventure, meeting people with the same hobby and enjoying the beauty half-hidden by the darkness that exists in the underground beneath the French capital.

Gaspard Duval is seen on camera, in love with these underground spaces for almost two decades. “I was seduced by the calm and beauty of the place. For me, it is the largest and most beautiful monument in Paris.”

He has documented many of the underground corners with his camera, with tens of thousands of images of the corridors, galleries and decorated rooms. “Little by little I ended up creating an immense photo library. It is a current testimony of what is under Paris and that may one day disappear.”

Its interest exceeds the official catacombs, for which you have to queue for hours and which, under Place Denfert-Rochereau, constitute less than one percent of the set of tunnels, most of them inaccessible and prohibited. Knowledge of the entries is kept secret by the cataphiles.

Despite the reservation, the presence of tourists who carelessly enter the catacombs to defy the forbidden, celebrate parties and seek strong emotions has increased. The number of people who come down on Friday or Saturday is increasing.