The creepiest place on Earth.

I've like to think I lived in Paris for a month in 1995. I worked there twice, for two weeks each time, the jobs about three months apart. But I like to think I lived in Paris for a month.

I saw a lot of Paris over those weeks and spent a lot of time in cemeteries. There's something interesting about looking at tombs and headstones, especially when they belong to famous people. The big attraction is obviously Pare Le Chaise, the final resting place of Moliere, Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, Chopin and hundreds of others (including at that time Jim Morrison - did they end up moving him? I should check that out...). I don't remember the names of other cemeteries but they were all pretty interesting. The jewel of the crown, though, are the Catacombs, more accurately called "Les Carrières de Paris" (the Paris Quarries). I'd never heard of them before but took an afternoon to travel out to see them. My recollection is that they are in an area of Paris sort of off the beaten tourist track, but I could be wrong about this. Well worth the trip nonetheless.

The story goes that there was a lot of disease from the overcrowding in some Parisian cemeteries where the bodies weren't being buried so well. In 1786 it was decided to exhume all the residents of several cemeteries and move the bones to an underground mass tomb in an old quarry. What makes it interesting is the fact that someone(s) decided to arrange the bones, neatly, in a series of underground tunnels. It's like something from a Clive Barker story. There are around 180 miles of tunnels under Paris, but the Catacombs are only a small part. I'd estimate the part that is open to the public to view is about 1.5 miles long.

You start with a long trek into a slowly inclined tunnel that gently goes deeper and deeper. The air is cool and dry and gets chillier the deeper you descend. Suddenly, there it is: a meticulously arranged pile of human bones stacked in a pile five feet high and ten feet wide. And again. And again. A pile of skulls. A pile of femurs. A pile of ribs. Crosses and hearts made of skulls imbedded into the stacks of thigh bones.

The bones have a reddish cast to them - maybe it's the light - and as you wander past stack after stack of bones, it starts to feel like you're in a creepy Walmart with calcified remains as endcaps.

There are a few good sites for more detailed information.

• Catacombs of Paris has maps and more maps.
• Underground Paris has a pretty extensive collection of photos and translates a lot of the memorials and markers.
• Urban Resources has a great section of links to information about La Mexicaine De Perforation, a clandestine group that operated a secret underground cinema in the the Paris quarries.

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