Skip-the-Line Paris Catacombs Tour
From Walks' Skip-the-Line Paris Catacomb Tour
Explore Paris's 'Empire of the Dead' with a local historian. Skip the notoriously long entrance lines and delve deep into one of Europe's largest catacombs to see macabre arrangements of bones and strange sculptures in rooms that usually sit behind locked gates. Along the way, you'll learn the improbable history of this enormous burial ground and how it literally saved the city from disaster.
Take a (special access!) walk through Paris's eerie City of the Dead
The Paris Catacombs stretch beneath the streets of the city and are the final resting place of some six million people. How they were transformed from abandoned quarries into one of Europe's largest communal burial grounds is quite a story, to say the least. You'll learn the whole tale as you explore their underground tunnels with our expert historian, including special access areas usually closed to the public.
Your Paris Catacombs Tour begins by skipping the long entrance lines that routinely stretch around the block. Instead, your guide will lead you and your small group, directly into miles of subterranean tunnels lined with bones.
As you pass strange sculptures made of human remains and crucifixes fashioned from skulls, your expert guide will tell you the story of how, as the cemeteries of Paris literally overflowed with bodies, city planners hatched an audacious plan to empty every last one and relocate the remains to a series of underground quarries - themselves already threatening to swallow entire blocks of the city.
How they pulled it off is just as impressive as what they created; miles of tunnels, stacked floor-to-ceiling with human remains. Since our Paris Catacombs Tour has special access, you'll step off the well-worn tourist path and go behind locked gates to see special rooms; areas like a small chapel that, until surprisingly recently, hosted religious ceremonies; and the Catacombs' first tourist attraction - a set of stone carvings created by a bored quarryman before he was killed in a rockfall.
Our Paris Catacombs Tour takes you on an insiders' visit to one of the city's most famous and sought-after attractions with an expert guide and an intimate group. There's no better way to immerse yourself in this completely unique site.
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