It’s a cold day in Paris. You’ve been to the Eiffel Tower. You’ve been to the Louvre. And it’s high time to find something weird and whacky to keep you busy all day long. Do not look further! Travelvivi comes with some unusual ideas that may tickle your fancy. How about some 6 to 7 million skeletal remains of former Parisians, or how about a thousand erotic figurines? These and much more are waiting for you in Paris, the so-called City of Lights, Romance and Fashion!
Visit the creepy Catacombs
“Arrête! C’est ici l’empire de la mort,” meaning, “Stop! This is the empire of death” can be read on a sign engraved in the stone at the entrance of the Paris Catacombs. And while people wouldn’t automatically think to head to underground tunnels with lots of bones during their holidays, for some it’s a truly weird thing that should definitely be experienced.
During the mid-1700s, the population of Paris grew so rapidly that the city soon ran out of spaces to bury its dead. A perfect solution for this was the Catacombs, a 1.7 km of underground corridors, in which millions of bones and skulls are neatly stacked along the walls. Despite the vast length of the tunneled, underground world, only a small section of it is open to tourists, known as Denfert-Rochereau Ossuary, or more popularly, The Catacombs.
Remember, entrance to the Paris Catacombs is extremely limited and the lines can be as long as two hours, so do not wait to book your tour today! The entrance is just across the street from the Denfert-Rochereau metro stop.
Discover erotic art at Paris’ Musee de l’Erotisme
A relatively recent addition to the Paris museum scene, the awe-inspiring Paris’ Musee de l’Erotisme, or Erotic Museum opened in 1997 and is housed in a former cabaret. Visitors can get acquainted with historic and contemporary erotic art and artifacts from Europe, Asia, the Americas and Africa on the seven floors of the museum.
Among the exhibitions visitors will find an early 20th century silent porn movie in black and white, thousands of erotic objects, ranging from sacred Indonesian phalluses to Indian Karma Sutra watercolors to carved wooden Thai nut-crackers, in which the nut is places between the thighs of a sultry maiden, as well as a collection of rare documents, photos and drawings linked to prostitution in Paris’ brothels, covering the period from the end of the 19th century until the mid-twenties.
An interesting fact about the museum is that surprisingly, at least 55 % of the visitors are female.
Hold your nose at the Paris Sewer Museum
“Paris has another Paris under herself; a Paris of sewers; which has its streets, its crossings, its squares, its blind alleys, its arteries, and its circulation, which is slime, minus the human form.”
Les Miserables, Jean Valjean; Book II, ch.1
Another unusual thing that is well worth a detour is the smellier underground Sewer Museum, created well before most other urban areas could boast anything vaguely close to the technology. Located in the sewers beneath the Quai d’Orsay on the Left Bank, the Paris Sewer Museum will take you through a long gallery that runs parallel to the River Seine. Here you’ll see pipes and sewer-maintenance equipment from past and present, mannequins of sewer workers in underground gear, a five-ton ‘flushing boat’ and fascinating exhibits about the history and construction of the Paris sewer system. Exhibits also show the machinery and techniques used to dredge the sand and solid waste from the channels. What more, you can also watch a video in the small theater and browse through the gift shop.
