You Can Take a Virtual Tour of The Paris Catacombs

It doesn’t really look like I’ll be traveling to Paris anytime soon and I can’t blame it on the current pandemic. It just simply isn’t an option.

There is so much in the world I want to see and I am taking advantage of all of these virtual opportunities and you should too!

Right now you can take a virtual tour of the Paris Catacombs and it is spooky good fun!

In the late eighteenth century, when major public health problems tied to the city’s cemeteries led to a decision to transfer their contents to an underground site. Paris authorities chose an easily accessible site that was, at the time, located outside the capital: the former Tombe-Issoire quarries under the Plain of Montrouge. The first evacuations were made from 1785 to 1787 and concerned the largest cemetery in Paris, the Saints-Innocents cemetery.

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The site was consecrated as the ‘Paris Municipal Ossuary’ on April 7, 1786, and, from that time forward, took on the mythical name of ‘Catacombs’, in reference to the Roman catacombs, which had fascinated the public since their discovery. Starting in 1809, the Catacombs were opened to the public by appointment.

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I’m headed there now! I mean, I have nowhere else to be, so I’m spending my evening in the Paris Catacombs! Join me here.