ossuaries, reliquaries, and epiceries

Our time left in Paris is short, so we spent yesterday dashing through three must-see recommendations from friends that we had left to visit.

We started at The Catacombs, an underground network of tunnels leftover from the Romans' limestone quarries. They were converted into a mass grave in the final years of the French monarchy, because Paris was running out of burial space, and nobody (other than bacteria) likes overflowing graveyards. Monsieur Hericart de Thury, an Inspector General of the Quarries under Napoleon, decided to turn the ossuary into a tourist attraction, and had all the bones restacked in crazy patterns. You can see mosaics in the shape of hearts, crosses, and arches, all made from skulls and femurs and ribs and the like. It's nutty.

Nick and I were really curious as to how Thury decided that the public wanted to see skulls stacked into heart shapes. We paid 5 euros each for the privilege, though, so obviously he was right. We got to talking about what we'd do with the Catacombs if we had Thury's job, and decided we'd bring back the candlelit tours they offered pre-electricity, and also let people pay extra to have the guards jump out from behind corners and scare the bejeezus out of their friends. I have now officially added manager of macabre national monument to my list of potential post-midlife crisis careers. (Other possibilities: owner-manager of a socially responsible bed and breakfast in a small Mexican village, high school science teacher.)

If you ever make it to the Catacombs, be sure to read all the signs, some of which were pretty funny. Instead of warning pregnant ladies and people suffering from heart conditions to stay away, like we do in America, the Catacombs cuts to the chase and declares "weak people" unfit for entry. I also enjoyed the warning that read "The ossuary tour could make a strong impression on children and people of a nervous disposition." I guess I've got a nervous disposition, because walking out the exit into the sunlight and realizing my feet were covered in bone dust definitely made a strong impression on me.

After the Catacombs, we jumped on the train to Chartres to see Europe's best preserved medieval cathedral. It was very pretty. If you go, I highly recommend the tour with Malcolm Miller, an adorable old british scholar who makes his living by rhapsodizing about the cathedral for the tourists. (Read more here.)

Finally, we stopped by Le Bon Marche, reputedly the best grocery store in Paris. My favorite part was the foreign food, which included an American aisle, featuring jars of strawberry marshmallow fluff, and a Tex-Mex aisle with taco shells and root beer. Why root beer? I don't get it, but then this isn't the first time I've noticed that Parisians have a strange conception of Tex-Mex. We once walked by a little girl eating a hamburger with a fried egg on it in a Tex-Mex restaurant on Rue Saint-Germain. I'm sympathetic, though. I live with a Texan, and they're still a mystery to me in many ways. (Why do they all think they have a panhandle, for example? Chimney, maybe. Pot-lid, sure. But that's not a panhandle - THIS is a panhandle.)

Anyway, thanks to everyone who shared their Paris recommendations with us, especially Jason and Stacey. We were lucky to have the advice of two savvy tourists like them.