Les Catacombes

The Catacombs was another day trip with the ISA program, and boy, what an experience! We went 20 meters underground through miles and miles of tunnels that were piled high with bones from 6 million corpses…CREEPY!! But, actually quite interesting: The Catacombes were initially built to clean the city of all the corpses that the Plague wiped out. Cemeteries were only for the very wealthy, so the people had to figure out what to do with all of the other bodies; the answer was one giant VERY organized grave. The bones are so old that over time, as water seeped into the ground it actually glued the bones together. The underground tunnels were also used during the French revolutions as both a hiding place, and battle grounds. Now, there are plaques throughout the Catacombes with old poems or sayings from famous authors or people. It was a very somber experience, a little creepy, and very interesting… YIKES!