Paris

The Realm of the Dead

Excerpts from my Little Green Book

The next day was cold, drizzly and grey. The day was perfect for a trip to the catacombs. As the trip was winding down, I was more and more wanting to see my own bed and my own home, so my plans for the last day were not ambitious. I took a bus into Paris and got off as we passed the Grande Arche, a big hollow cube in the business district of Paris. The area was all concrete and glass. There was a huge TV showing Bugs Bunny cartoons in the middle of the square, but due perhaps to the weather, no-one was watching them. It didn't take me long to scurry back into the Metro.

Completed in 1989, La Grande Arche (the big arch) sits in the modern, business district of Paris.

The entrance to the Catacombs was a non-descript brown metal hut that I almost walked right by even though I was looking for it. I bought a ticket then walked down an extremely long spiral staircase and then along a narrow tunnel. Just as I was beginning to wonder if I had taken a wrong turn (even though there were no turns), I came to the catacombs.

The Catacombs - tunnels and tunnels of the dead. The expansion of Paris necessitated the development of graveyards, and the dead were moved to tunnels under the city.

As Paris expanded, the French decided to develop the graveyards, so they had to move the dead. They brought them to these tunnels and stacked them carefully and even artistically along the walls of the tunnel. Large stone tablets with messages carved into them gave information about where the bones had come from. The atmosphere was cold and damp, and it felt and smelled like death, but not overpoweringly so. After walking for well over an hour underground I climbed another long staircase to ground level. The exit was a simple door set in a simple unmarked wall, and the door even had a house number on it. You'd never know where it lead unless you knew what it was.

Bones in a corner mark the final resting place of the casualties of one of the battles of the original French Revolution.

Then it was back to Loic's house, where he'd promised to cook us our last meal in Paris. He made a potato dish called tartiflette which was solid and delicious. We slept our last night in his house, then headed to the airport.

A musician entertains travelers on their way to Charles de Gaulle Airport.

The ride home was long but smooth. We spend a night in England before heading back to Korea. We arrived back to news that we'd just missed the worst snowstorm Korea had experienced in 100 years. We were lucky we didn't come home a day earlier, as the whole country had been paralised by the 50cm that fell. Back

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