The Bastille and the Bell Tower
We were a little Catacombed-out after our 30-hour marathon trip. Still, that didn’t mean we weren’t still up for seeing more of the hidden side of town. Steve wanted to visit the sewers before we left (there’s actually an official sewer tour that’s offered, but he’d already taken that and wanted to see the rest), and I wanted to run around the subway tunnels. Unfortunately, we didn’t get around to either one. Both sewers and subways are a lot riskier than the catas. A little more time, a few more contacts, we probably would have figured it out. But as it stood, we couldn’t even figure out what the third rail was on the subway tracks. Ah well, it’s always good to save something for the next trip.
Instead, we decided to see if we could visit an underground canal we saw on a map. I had been wanting to do a lot more walking around town, so I decided to scope it out on my walk earlier that day, and meet up with Steve later if it looked promising. I found both the north and south ends of the tunnel (the canal continues above-ground on either side). Both looked pretty secure - the walkways had locked fences, and they were arranged so that the only way around involved swimming.
Still, when I met Steve he wanted to see for himself. And it turned out we were in luck - one of the padlocks on the gate turned out to be so old that it broke off in our hand. In we went.
The canal itself wasn’t that interesting. What was interesting was the fact that we were right underneath where the Bastille used to be. Despite there being a “Bastille” stop on the subway map, the actual prison hasn’t existed since July 14th, 1789. What’s there now is the Colonne de Juillet, which bears a startling resemblance to the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument in Ft. Greene, Brooklyn. While we were in the Canal, we noticed a door covered with a metal grate. That evening, David told us that when he was a kid you could break open the door, which led to the spiral staircase that went right up to the top of the Colonne. The Prison Ship Martyrs Memorial, which has been closed for decades, is something I’ve always wanted to climb, so when I heard David had gotten up its Parisian sibling, my jealousy was pretty palpable (Note: climbing of the Prison Ship Martyrs Memorial now accomplished. Re-opening to the public expected 2007).
Fortunately there were other climbing options that night. After visiting David, we headed north to the Church of St. Sulpice (which some readers might know from its role in the DaVinci Code). Steve left all his photography equipment back at the hotel. Sometimes you just have to go climb something interesting for the pure fun of it. This one was for us.
The church had scaffolding on the North tower. That was the good news. The bad news was twofold - there was a police station right across the plaza, and it had the same metal fencing as the Tour St. Jacques. This time, however, there’d be no digging under. The fencing wasn’t on grass, but on concrete. We had to find a way over instead.
Our best shot seemed to be this way. We both made it over, and up we went, hoping we hadn’t made enough of a racket that we were heard by the cops across the plaza. When I went back a few days later to take pictures, I noticed somebody had managed to open up another way in.
We got to the top, and after admiring the view and congratulating ourselves, we took the interior staircase down into the bell tower. Some of the Parisians have been all around St. Sulpice. For us though, the top and the bell tower were enough. It was amazing being in there - as opposed to the modern concrete bell tower of the Church in Reykjavik, which we had visited officially on our trip to Iceland, the bells of St. Sulpice were entirely supported by wooden scaffolding over 200 years old. We climbed around a bit, then headed back down. We noticed another interesting tidbit on our way. On the face of the tower was a plaque engraved in Hebrew with the name of God.
Tags: Above, Below, Climbing, France, Paris
