Tuesday . . .

Evan declared Tuesday the day of phobias. We started out at the catacombs, where we were forewarned that a) people of a nervous disposition should strongly consider an alternate activity, and, b) small children should not enter unless their parents are OK with months of nightmares. Claustrophobia and nightmares be damned, said we. So down the stairs we went, 20 m below the city, and began our trek towards the ossuary.







Stop! This is the empire of death.








Any guesses on how many Parisians are buried in the catacombs? Evan said 30,000, and I guessed 50,000. We were off by two orders of magnitude - there are 6 million bodies (or the remains thereof) in the catacombs. At one point, the bones were sort of haphazardly piled underground before an initiative for a more "decorative" arrangement. Ha!

Fear of shellfish and/or Belgian beer was next on the menu, followed by a stroll through the Jardin Luxembourg.








And for our last phobia, we took to the Eiffel Tower after wandering along the Seine.




View from the summit