Tour of the Parisian Sewers

The obsession of going to the Parisian sewers started when I was on a plane back to California from Roanoke. There was actually an interesting article on this tour someone had taken of these sewers, in Paris, and were raving about it. I was hooked. As a person, I admit, it's sort of a meh thing. But as a writer? The possibilities are endless and exciting. Besides, it promised to reference Victor Hugo, who while I've never read his work, I'm always interested in literary history.
So, I went. It was actually possible to get there off my metro, so I started out pretty late. The metro ride was brief, less than 20 minutes. Walking the streets to get there took 30-40 minutes. Why? Well, it seems my mother and I have the same sense of direction. That is to say, none (sorry mom. But your direction sense still rocks over mine!). I walked up and down the same street 3 times, trying to figure out the right direction. I found it, eventually, just when I was about to give up. Still, there are worse things in life then walking by the Seine on a beautiful day.

Anyways, I eventually got to the ticket office and managed to mispronounce ticket badly, but the lady knew what I meant and sent me on the right way.

Goodbye daylight!

Being in the sewers was actually really creepy. When I first got there, there was absolutely no one around and the place seemed completely abandoned. I wasn't sure if I was in a forbidden area and I had no idea of where I was allowed to go. Besides this, I could see a man uniform watching me from some distance away. I played it safe by looking at the posters (in french) on the water cycle, then risked going to what was labeled as two. The man didn't stop me, so I figured it was fine. I walked over to where the man was. It seemed he was by some sort of cool display. I smiled at him nervously. He did not return the smile. I decided to take a closer look at the exhibit he was watching.

 . . . and then I realized, he wasn't just watching the exhibit, he was part of it!

That's my man! You could say he's a dummy at times. 

I felt very stupid, particularly when I realized there were manikins all over the place! Particularly after I had thought this guy was human for so long, they creeped me out!

Here's what the first room looked like:

It was actually dark enough that I used flash for every single photo, save this one. Once I traveled past this room, it became very maze like, dark and foreboding. I freaked out for a bit, but then realized I had a map. Heh. I'm so smart.

I set out in the direction that seemed most likely.

I ran into all kinds of interesting things:

 There were many old machines on display that are used for . . . sewer things. Like this: 

I was really surprised though, to find that the tour included parts of the actual sewer. There was the sound of rushing water and plenty of grates with water rushing under them, plus, at one point, there was a strong smell of feces. So that was nice. Still though, the atmosphere was certainly something out of a story. 

The closer I got to the smell, the stronger the sound of water got. I crossed over a large grate and into the main part of the museum, the part where they had all the artifacts and the history of the sewers over this huge water grate. The sound of the water was actually so loud it gave me a throbbing headache. I actually had to revisit this room to see it all and I still don't remember what I read!

In  case you don't believe me, here is what the water sounded like! It was kind of incredible. 

I got all kinds of flashes of one of favorite dystopia movies, city of ember! 

While I've only seen it once, I liked it a lot. 

Here were some of the stranger things in the room:

In the center of the room, on which everything was placed on, was this grate. The stuff under the grate is white water. 

Bust of important guy. Did I think to jot down his name? Nope!

Yes, there were a bunch of swords. 

Boots. 

After I left this room there was an abrupt drop in temperature. It had been lukewarm in the other rooms, now it was icy. I put on my jacket and moved forward. I was still completely isolated.

On the next bend I ran into this: 

Which I thought was pretty cool. I love literary anything, as I mentioned and it was cool to learn about the real books instead of that . . . um . . . interesting . . . movie. 

The next corner had move surprises. 

There were more manikins and old machines here too. There was a passage and then a large chamber. In the chamber, there were these oddities. 

Which are supposed to be used for cleaning waste. 

This was more or less the end of the tour, so I headed back along in a narrow space between a gate blocking the sewers and the path. 

Before I ended though, I went back through. I discovered two new things: A passage and a decent shot of one of the rooms I went through. 

After that, I headed up the surface again, into my sweet, sweet air.