Saturday July 31st : report by Steve
After days of looking at “old things”, buildings, statues, paintings, stained glass windows, etc, it was my turn to pick something “old” to go look at. It’s now a family joke to say, “ Do you know how old that is?” because Terri is always comparing to what we have or don’t have in the USA, to give the girls perspective of what they are looking at. Anything over a hundred years of age is old in our area and a couple hundred years for most of the US and we have looked at some building structures from 60 AD and most of the stuff is at least 300 - 400 years old. I decided to put a male spin on things. We went to the catacombs!
The catacombs started out as quarries for limestone and gypsum. In 1786 the unsanitary city cemetery had become a problem so they began the monumental project of removing and transporting millions of skulls, bones and rotting corpses to the quarries. It took 15 months to complete the project, which was done at night, so as to not upset the “living” folk.
Just before the Revolution, Charles X threw parties in the catacombs (could have been a great Halloween bash!), and during World War II the French Resistance set up headquarters there.
We spent just over an hour waiting in line, just like Rick Steve’s guide told us and we began our descent down the narrow stairway into the underground. After maneuvering as many stairs as we did ascending Notre Dame, we were several floors below the busy crowds above and headed down long tunnels to the bones. If you are over 6 foot tall be sure to duck you head at the appropriate times and all should be aware of the goo dripping from the ceiling and the slick stone floors. The bones are stacked in very neat, organized and even artistic patterns. Outlines of churches, crosses and designs can be seen with the various arrangements of skulls and thighbones!
We spent over an hour following the trails between the stacks of bones and Terri translated some of the various quotes about death etched in marble. Almost like headstones, but not a tribute to any one person, because no one knows whose skull is who’s.
Upon finishing the tour, we returned to the girls favorite activity, shopping. After a while of that, we had a little competition to see who could get back to the apartment first, Terri on the bus, or the girls and I on the metro. We won by 20 minutes, but found out that it wasn’t really a competition after all, because Terri stopped to do some more shopping on the way home.
We took a break, and rested up for our evening Versailles garden and fountain tour.
Jumped on the metro, then the train to Versailles. Had dinner at an outdoor table, typical French postcard setting, then headed on over to the palace. The weather was just right for a 3-hour stroll around the gardens. It was amazing to see how big, beautiful and detailed the gardens are. The grounds of Versailles cover over 4,000 acres and the gardens are likely 200 acres or so. A new fountain is discovered with almost every turn and many have been updated with sound, light, laser, smoke, and fire to add to the effect. The evening finished with a 30 minute or so fireworks show set to classical music, then it was off to the races to beat the other tourists to the train so that we had a seat for the return trip. Got to bed at 2:00 am, but had a great day in spite of the blisters.
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