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Published: November 8th 2009
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27th February '09:
The trouble with tourist attractions is that they’re teeming with tourists. A bus full of English school children rolls up just as I arrive at Les Catacombes, considerably lengthening the queue. Standing in the cold, mostly in pairs of various nationalities, feels like waiting for a space on Noah’s Ark. We wait, and wait, at a drab, colourless shed. It looks like a lifeless building from the German Democratic Republic, and marks the entrance to a subterranean ossuary.
Balding Indian men in puffer jackets inspect rucksacks, letting eight people in at a time. A line of people stamp up and down, gazing at their own breath. With numb feet, we descend twenty metres by spiral staircase, down below even the metro and sewer systems. A sign warns: 'the tour could make a strong impression on people with a nervous disposition.' Once deep underground, there is a long stone-lined passage, running for over 500 metres before anything of interest. Sandals filled with gravel, I soldier on under a dripping roof.
They try and spice up the journey with placards on dry mortar walls, but essentially it would be nice if they moved the hut a bit
closer to the interesting stuff. Luckily Namibian is resting today; he’d be too tall for all this tunnelling.
In 1785, rampant disease in Les Halles neighbourhood led to exhumed mass graves. Cartloads of bodies covered with black clothes crossed the city by night under watchful eyes of chanting priests. The rotting cadavers were brought here, to this old stone quarry in southern Paris. Now there is no flesh, just bones.
Another Indian man shines his torch, illuminating these bones, and casually mentions that there are six million skeletons here. They take up an awful lot of room. Bones and skulls are neatly stacked like firewood, about five feet high and thirty metres deep, lining the tunnel interminably. Well, not interminably because then, like the Louvre, you’d never get out.
'Attention. Difficult Stairway (83 steps). You are advised to climb slowly,' says the sign by the exit. Dizzy rather than breathless, I emerge in an entirely different place to starting - which is rather inconvenient if travelling by bicycle; one has to trudge the Citroen-lined streets with a map, looking for it.
28th February: ("Paris-Antwerp")
Namibian waltzed into Catering last night, looking trim and virile in
Crazy Sandra
'Your bicycle is round here somewhere..' his new Swedish cardigan. I complimented him. He’s “back in black”, you might say - an AC/DC reference that’ll be lost on most of you if you’re anything like me. In the words of KangarooJack, though, he is still looking a little 'tubby custard'! Anyway, rather than just thank me for noticing how slimming the colour black is, he has the gall to claim: 'I've not eaten nothing for two days.' Double negative aside, this is perfect balderdash - not twenty-four hours ago, he was seen, first-hand, gulping down a bison burger in a riverside steakhouse. It was the sort of joint that ought to have six foot stunning waitresses on roller skates...but, in practice, a sullen poor-complexioned girl threw menus at us and got our drinks wrong.
Ah, it’s always a sigh of relief to leave Paris unscathed; the standard of driving really is appalling. If it were not for landmarks like the Eiffel Tower, it would differ only marginally from Vietnam. Actually, the driving is a little worse there, but not much. So, with Paris behind us, we can relax, put on cruise control and set the alarm clock for the Belgian border.
Today is a
travel day to, of all places, Antwerp again - the fourth time this year. Other than driving through a pea-soup fog in Northern France, there is little to report. But yesterday, I was so busy with a masterpiece on the catacombs, that I had no time to include “Crazy” Sandra, a German pal who is smitten with heavy metal.
She came to Paris to see the AC/DC show, unable to believe that Namibian and I can shun a rock concert in favour of a short nap. It vexes her actually. So I watched a bit, and, ooh, I recognized a song. It’s a great show but I'll never be a die-hard fan - there isn't a single trombone on stage. Crikey, what an insane volume! Yet Little Dick tells me: 'Motorhead are louder than that.' And he should know; he’s driven on the last couple of tours. And if I want to start a sentence with a conjunctive, I will - it’s my blog!..
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kangaroojack
The Ts
Hi Barnaby
Just read your blog, excellent as usual, hey me and Mrs Kangaroojack came up with a brilliant sales idea for you. Now me being a guy of 46, I remember Bon Scott, long before Brian Johnson apeared on the sean and as a young buck of 15 or so remember seeing Angus Young on Bon Scott shoulders at the Birmingham Odeon. Any way back to business, I bet you could have a nice little e-bay number going getting the bands to sign CD's for you than flogging them on on Theive Bay:-0. We are concerned about Namibians waist line, with the "Tubby Custard Reference. Keep up the good work, we had a great journey the other day Mrs Kangaroojack was reading your blog out to me whilst I was driving, I, like you hate it, not the blog but the driving. All the best from the very rainy Sunshine Coast