Mommy, what’s a “Cataphile?”
After getting the supplies from David, we headed out. When we got to the beginning of the tunnel we would have to enter to get to the hole to the catas, we saw lights. We really didn’t know what to do. Was it cops? Bums? Fellow cataphiles? The last thing we wanted to do was find ourselves in a tight spot a few thousand miles from home - and with a few thousand dollars worth of photography equipment on us to boot. Still, we decided to go ahead. We had come too far to turn around and run away at the sight of a flashlight.
It proved to be a wise decision - it was simply other cataphiles coming out of the same hole. We introduced ourselves and chatted for a bit. They left, and about 5 minutes later another group came out. In fact, all in all, we passed at least 2 dozen people during our 5 trips into the catas - almost all near this particular entrance. Most were locals, but there were a couple Swedes and a German we also ran into down there. My favorites were the group of six guys with sleeping bags and a stereo playing “Eat the Rich,” and another guy we ran into later wearing sandals and a Hawaiian shirt. He was drinking a beer and called himself the “CataHawaiian.”
It’s interesting - there’s probably about 300-500 people who regularly visit the catacombs, and probably several hundred others who do so on a more sporadic basis (compare that to perhaps two dozen people in New York City who make a regular habit of similar benign-trespassing activities). There’s various different nouns they use to describe themselves - the most regular one being “Cataphile.” Literally translated, of course, this just means “Lover of the Catacombs.” In a cultural context, however, there’s a whole host of subtleties to this (and other) titles that we only just began to understand.
There are people, such as the guys behind www.zone-tour.com, who call themselves “Urban Explorers” instead, and won’t have any thing to do with people who even associate with anyone calling themselves “Cataphiles.” We were also told a new group of people were calling themselves “Catastars,” what ever that means. And, of course, there’s always the folks like ourselves - basically tourists. In fact I dubbed the kind of travel we were doing “extreme tourism.”
“Cataphiles” (or Urban Explorers) in France are pretty varied. Some go in just to hang out and party. Others paint murals, or write graffiti, or work on opening up closed sections of the catas, or take pictures, or just see what they can find. But the ones that are really into it don’t just visit the catacombs. Anywhere interesting that they can go, they do. And they don’t stop at just opening manholes and such - sometimes it seems like they give jewel thieves a run for their money with their tactics. I’ve heard stories about key impressioning, mountaineering ropes, and forged ID’s - all just to get somewhere interesting. David told us a story about being caught by the police on the roof of the Louvre - and then talking his way out of it and climbing back up the next day.
And that’s basically the difference - Europe is just a lot more chill. It’s a 100 Euro fine if you’re caught in the catacombs, and they don’t even take your map. The police are basically content to play a cat-and-mouse game with the cataphiles - entrances and sections of the catacombs are constantly being sealed up by the authorities and broken back into by the cataphiles. In fact, it’s actually illegal for the IGC (basically the government agency in charge of maintaining and patrolling the catacombs) to seal up all the entrances because it might mean trapping somebody down there.
In New York, if all you’re doing is crossing a “no-trespassing” sign it’s generally not that big a deal if you get caught, even in the subway tunnels. But if you add stuff like forgery and lockpicking (or even just writing graffiti) or start climbing up famous landmarks cat burglar-style, it’s a very different story. And the populace at large in Paris is much more chill also. In addition to our experience climbing the Tour St. Jacques, we also did stuff like open up manholes in broad daylight, with nobody giving us a second look.
Even knowing all of this, breaking the law in a foreign country is never that great of an idea. Still, it didn’t stop us from heading in for our first solo expedition…
Tags: Below, Catacombs, France, Paris, Underground
