I recently visited the Catacombs in Paris. The entry is quite discreet even though it’s near a major subway station. Beyond the main black doors, which say simply “Entrée des Catacombs”, there is a tiny white waiting room. Few chairs line the walls. The floor is covered in simple linoleum squares.

After handing over a few francs to the blasé-looking lady behind the counter, you are given a ticket and directed towards a smaller inner door just a few feet away. There, a man takes your ticket – tears off the stub – then opens the door, beyond which is a staircase. This is where it gets interesting.

The staircase leading down to the catacombs is extremely narrow; a winding coil of concrete – nothing but a seemingly endless spiral of claustrophobia. With each turn you hope you’ll finally see the bottom but you do not. Down, down, down you go. It begins to feel ridiculous. If someone is behind you, you cannot go back up; that is how tight it is. Eventually though, you DO reach the bottom (thank God!) and are deposited into a small but brightly lit chamber.

The chamber is for tourists; photographs are neatly hung with bits of history printed in several languages next to them. This is where we learn there are millions of skeletons deeper in the catacombs; how they got there and why, etc. Beyond that chamber is a second, similar one. A few more steps - and THIS is where you leave ‘reality’ behind.

The first thing you notice when entering an actual tunnel is … how oppressive the earth feels around you. It’s dark and damp. If you are tall (like our friend Bill, over 6’) you’ll have to stoop else bang your head a few times, as he did. Here, there is no more concrete, only limestone – pure, terra firma dripping with condensation - carved out long ago. It isn’t … soil, but rock. Hard. Light colored. There is a bit of dim electric lighting every fifty feet or so – just enough so you can make out the walls. You can’t help but think of coal miners.

The initial corridor is impossibly long. So long, you start to wonder how medical help could possibly get to you in time if you had a heart attack. You wonder how anyone up top would even KNOW you had a heart attack, and begin to calculate how long it would take whomever you are with to run back, get up those stairs, and tell someone. If you press on, the real sights are ahead.

Eventually, you come to another doorway. Not a wooden doorway, but a type of metal grate with a sign above it. I do not know what the sign says. It is in Latin and looks ominous. Beyond that, the ‘ceiling’ opens up a bit, but the pathway becomes no wider. I am not sure how to describe what you experience next.

First of all, you are acutely aware that you have entered a somber place – a place of the dead – a place to be respectful, mindful and… quiet. The remains are stacked, floor to ceiling – as far as you can see. There are no barriers. You can touch them if you want to, but you do not want to, because that would be somehow sacrilegious and aweless. There are no coffins – only endless rows of skulls and bones. Even though their number is overwhelming, it still feels… personal somehow. You feel in your own bones that each skull was a living, breathing person – had a life, loves, experiences, a face, etc. You wonder how they died. You wonder how old they were.

Many of the skulls are several hundred years old. As such, they are smaller than you might expect (perhaps people were more petite back then?) They look like they belonged to children. They are arranged in definite collections; this collection from such-and-such hospital, the next one from such-and-such church. Many of the collections are simply stacked, but others are ‘displayed’ meaning whoever stacked them made ‘shapes’ or artistic patterns out of them. Surreal.

Large, concrete slabs are visible throughout – each has either a bit of poetry or a quote on it (often in French or Latin) all having to do with death, God, the brevity of life, etc. Deeper into the ‘caves’ are a few surprising, cathedral-type vaulted ceilings. There are places for prayers. There are places for kneeling. The ground is simply dirt at this level. The ‘city’ feels long gone. This goes on, and on, and on. Difficult to describe. I hope my words here have helped to make them more ‘real’.

Has anyone else here ever been? Is this a place any of you think you might like to visit sometime? Please share! (smile)