We have known for a few days in France some temperatures well above normal. Indeed, the latter should be above 30° over the entire territory on Friday and could exceed 40° locally in the South-East quarter.
Since yesterday, Wednesday June 15, 23 departments have been placed on orange “heat wave” vigilance.
And Paris and the Ile de France are no exception to the rule. Drinking water regularly, limiting physical and sports activities, avoiding going out during the hottest hours, protecting your home from the sun during the day and ventilating at night… Here are some of the best practices to adopt.
Another is to move to a cool or air-conditioned place. Our reporter has found the place for you: the catacombs of Paris !
– Quentin Lhui
direction so Avenue du Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy where Isabelle Knafou, the administrator of the Catacombs of Paris, awaits her. 131 steps down is “a network of 300 km of galleries which spreads over the south of Paris and its close suburbs”. Within these, 11,000 m² are devoted to the Catacombs of Paris“ie the Parisian municipal ossuary which houses the bones of 6 million Parisians since the end of the 18th century”.
It all started in 1785 in the 1st arrondissement. The Saints Innocents cemetery, now Place Joachim du Bellay, “overflows, the bones go into the cellars, there is a terrible smell everywhere in the neighborhood and the residents decide to carry out legal action to say stop”. The decision was then made not only to stop burying the dead on site but also to transfer all these bones to former disused quarries.
We pile them up like that, a bit hastily
At the beginning of the 19th century, Hericart de Thury, an inspector general quarries, “decided to create the fantastic setting we know today by stacking these bones, femurs and skulls aesthetically”.
A decor that is both solemn and dignified which questions throughout the 1.5 km course “on the fragility of death, the finitude of life and the equality between all men”. “Of the stoic philosophers quotes invite either to meditation if one is religious or quite simply to spirituality”.
And good news! The queues that we saw a few years ago no longer exist since the Covid. Period when a system of online booking has been set up.
At worst, there is a 10 minute wait
Here, recalls Isabelle Knafou, “it’s the story of Parisians because the 6 million Parisians buried here are all our ancestors, including our most illustrious French like Molière, Racine, Lafontaine, Colbert and our great revolutionaries because at the time, there were no graves, there were mass graves”.
In the rest of our podcast discover Jonathan’s adviceorthopaedist, to deal with this heat wave.