We’re spending 3 months in Barcelona, but come along as we take a little trip to Paris! You can find the rest of our Paris posts here and our Barcelona posts here.

GUYS! Never in all my life did I see this adventure coming. Until I had kids… kids that love bones!

It wasn’t until last year that I learned that you could visit the catacombs. You know, without sneaking in some spooky locked gate and getting lost down there forever.

What are Catacombs?

The Parisian catacombs have such an interesting history, and it’s worth reading about in more detail if you’re into this sort of thing.

The short and simple version is that in the 1700s cemeteries in the city were running out of space, and the city was growing up around them, limiting their ability to expand.

The city is built on limestone deposits, and they were quarrying this rock to use as a building material. In some cases the extraction of the rock was happening directly under already existing buildings, and wasn’t being properly managed. This lead to an underground maze of abandoned mines and an unstable infrastructure with at least one building collapse.

At a certain point the government stepped in and realized that they could solve two problems at the same time: monitor and reinforce abandoned mine tunnels, and use that open space to create an ossuary to make space in the cemeteries.

This work to move the bodies and create the catacombs was carried out during the second half of the 1700s and into the 1800s. After first this work was done haphazardly, but thanks to a mine inspector named Louis-Étienne Héricart de Thury, the work became more orderly, creating the artistic bone placements and structures that the catacombs are known for, and turning the space into a mausoleum worthy of visitors.

By the time that the work was done, it is estimated that network of tunnels is over 200 miles long, and there are 6 million bodies in the catacombs!

Visiting the Catacombs

Today you can easily (and safely) visit a section of the catacombs. Even though it’s sanctioned, it’s still just as spooky as you would imagine.

From what I understand, there is a regulation that only 200 people can be down in the catacombs at a time.

I’m not sure how many were down there during our visit, but it was definitely less than 200, and we were easily able to keep our distance from other groups. We thought that it was more special and scary if we couldn’t see many other people while down there.

Thinking about it still gives me goosebumps!