Tuesday, October 5, 2010

THIRD TRIP TO PARIS - DAY 4

Our last day in Paris we went to the Catacombs and then to a cemetery. The Catacombs were fascinating to see. it is a network of tunnels and rooms located in a converted quarry that was converted into these mass tombs in the 18th century. there is actually 300km of tunnels but only 2km is open to the public. After going a very long way down a spiral staircase you then have to walk for maybe 10 minutes through a maze of tunnels before you come to the wider tunnels that are lined with hundreds and thousands of bones all lined perfectly up. quite often the bones were designed in different shapes such as crosses or arches. you weren't allowed to use flash photography down there so most of our photos didn't really turn out but i put on the best ones for you to have a look at. it was a tad creepy at times having so many skulls staring at you. but it was also very interesting, sometimes you could see what looked like  bullet hole in the foreheads of the skulls.

Bones down in the Catacombs

More bones
Yet more bones

A sneaky shot i took with the flash on
After the Catacombs we went back to the steak place we had dinner at a few nights before, Ewen wanted one more delicious steak before leaving France and it wasn't very hard to convince me. Next up was a visit to he Pere Lachaise cemetery, this is the worlds most visited cemetery with people coming to see the graves of people such as Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde. We saw both of those graves, Jim Morrison's was quite tame and low key which surprised us. Especially after seeing Oscar Wilde's which was a huge tomb covered in lipstick kisses from loving fans. We also went and saw the graves of Marcel Marceau who was a famous mime artist (and mentioned in Friends), and Marcel Proust who was a french writer.

Pere Lachaise cemtery
Some of the head stones at Pere Lachaise cemetery

Oscar Wilde's tomb

A pyramid tomb

Jim Morrisons grave
After the cemetery we got the metro back to the hostel to pack our stuff, do laundry and have an early dinner so we would be all ready to get up 4.30am the next morning to get our flight to London.

1 comment:

Mark P said...

Hey yet another fancinating blogg Pete, great photos too. You cetainly know how to mung down on the macaroons he he!