30 Hours Under Paris, part 1
Unless otherwise noted, all pictures are copyright of my friend, travel partner, and fellow guerilla urbanist Steve Duncan. Steve is a wonderful photographer, and specializes in underground and urban photography. Prints are available - visit his website at http://www.undercity.org
The more we saw of the catacombs, the more we wanted to see. Since we were told that there’s usually more people (and cops) on the weekends, we decided to take Saturday off and prep for a marathon trip. Our intention was to do 24 hours. We ended up doing 30. It seems like a long time, but it’s actually not that much - David spent over a week down there once as a teenager.
The catacombs are a constant 50 degrees Fahrenheit year-round, with about 98% humidity. The practical result of this climate is weird: you get really hot while you’re moving around - to the point wearing shorts and a t-shirt - but when you rest a while and cool down, you get pretty chilly. And if you’re trying to take a nap, it’s like the stone floor is sucking the heat right out of your body. Since a 24-hour trip entails sleeping, and I needed a sleeping bag anyway, we hit Aux Vieux Camper to pick up some gear. A couple hundred Euros later, we were off.
It didn’t start out so good - we tried to get to the abandoned tracks that led to the entrance a different way than usual. A few hours, a couple locked gates, and several confused passersby later, we decided to forget our bright idea, walk about a mile to the entrance we knew, and go from there. By the time we got down onto the tracks, it was dark already.
Still, we were determined to spend an entire day down there, and we were also determined to see as much as we could. The first thing on our list was the German Bunker, constructed during the Vichy Period. There’s also a French Resistance bunker in the catacombs - and both sides never found out the other was down there. That’s how big the catacombs are.
We couldn’t get into the French Resistance bunker - the entrances had all been sealed up by the IGC. Rosie told us that there had been a way in about a week ago, but it was filled up with concrete now. That’s the way the catas are: parts are sealed up by the IGC and (less often unfortunately) parts are opened back up by the cataphiles. For tourists like us, what we get to see is just pretty much just the luck of the draw.
The German Bunker happened to be open - but just barely. This was the only way in. I refused to make the place our bedroom - I couldn’t stop worrying about what would happen if the IGC decided to seal up the entrance during the night.
Near the German Bunker was a room strangely reminiscent of an old bathroom (the sink’s in the foreground and the toilet’s in the background) - and judging by the smell, the cataphiles use it for its original purpose. While the architecture was incredible, we understandably decided to not to sleep there either. We ended up bedding down (and freezing) in this humble sanctuary a little ways away.
The German Bunker is in the far north of the catacombs. The entrance we used was on the opposite end, about two miles directly south. And, to put it mildly, the structure of the catas is not such that you can just enter and walk straight on over to the other side. It took hours of studying the map and winding our way under the 14th arrondissement before we found it. This, in combination with our late start, made us pretty much ready to call it a day when we found the bunker, a little disappointed that we hadn’t seen more. Again though, our biggest frustration was simply the timing. Just a day before we arrived in Paris another entrance 10 minutes from the German bunker had been welded shut. The worst part about it was that it was also 2 blocks from our hotel. Ah well - international urban adventure’s not supposed to have the luxury of curbside check-in anyway.
Tags: Below, Catacombs, France, Paris, Underground
May 26th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
I went in last week (May 2009) near the 15th. Walked all the way to the German Bunker–same tiny entrance is still open. Exit was fun–dirt tunnel to the sewers, then up in front of the police department near Luxembourg Gardens.