Dome, Crypt and Catacombs

20 March

We were going to do the catacombs in the morning, but the day turned out really nice. So we decided to spend the morning above ground and took the metro to Monmartre. We overshot the Sacre Cour stop and ended up walking to Sacre Cour from the back end. This area of the city appears older than the rest with narrow cobblestone streets and the only part of Paris that is undulating.

Sacre Cour itself is a very pretty cathedral, not the largest I have seen in Europe. As Paris is a low rise city (apart from the Montparnasse tower), this cathedral has the high ground over everything in Paris.

We decided to take the Dome and Crypt tour for 8 euros each. Skip the crypt one and save 2 euros. The dome part is definitely worth doing for the views over the city.

Then we walked downhill to the Anvers metro stop against the tourist crowds coming the other way. All the usual tricklet shops are here, and plenty of street artists to choose from. Marcus mentioned that he had his caricature done here in last years school history tour.

Back in Montparnasse, we joined the queue for the catacombs tour. It took 30 mins to get to the front, but the weather was nice so we didn't mind. It was 8 euros for me and 4 for Marcus. We went down a long narrow spiral staircase to the bottom. As I can gather these catacombs used to be an underground limestone quarry (I forgot to hire the audio guide), long forgotten. One day in the early 1800s, part of it collapsed, so the city folks were very nervous about the stability of the ground below. A public works project was set up to shore up the quarry and save that part of the city.

There was a lot of empty space in the catacombs after this project was completed. Someone came up with the idea to shift all the bones from the various cemetaries to these catacombs to free up living space above. I would have preferrred to store wine.

The tour was 30 mins of wall to wall bones, ending quite near our apartment. Well, it would have been quite near if we'd gone the right way. So it was a long walk home. Marcus had a headache so we picked up a couple of deliciously large savoury crepes for a late lunch and went home. I bought a bottle of Savignon Blanc amongst our other supplies from the Monoprix for 3 euros, and just noticed on the receipt it was on promo and 1.45 euro was credited against the bill. It is really tough to justify drinking anything else.