Today would be our last full day in Paris, and it left us quite a bit to attempt to see. We too many activities to hit, we opted to start the morning by heading to the Natural History Museum of Paris, specifically the Museum of Evolution. The museum was amazing, I was torn by the beauty of the building and the incredible taxidermy specimens on display inside. The museum featured an impressive collection of both modern and pre-history animals, either well preserved or presented as a taxidermy display.
We met Jean-Pierre back at his flat around 2:00p, and headed for the Catacombs. For as long as he has been leaving in Paris, he had never seen the old Catacombs where in the late 1700’s Paris in order to deal with its increasing sanity and real estate problems, exhumed all the bodies of the mass graves around the Churches in the city. The remains of six million Parisians were placed in a newly dug out labyrinth of tunnels under Paris, now known as the Catacombs. The bones are neatly stacked like firewood throughout the tunnels leaving only a narrow space to walk through. Each major pile holds a plague informing you to what Church contributed the remains and when. Among the femurs and ribs, the skulls on most of the piles are faced inward, however some of the piles they are faced out or in odd decorations. It’s amazing to think that the piles represent six million people, each one having a unique story that will likely never be heard.
Later that night, we headed over the Louvre to try to get some quick night photos of the exterior, something that we realized we had failed to do. While we were able to get a few pictures, we did not stay very long. The well-below freezing temperatures and wind reminded us to much of Sweden and froze us to the bone.
