Took advantage of some cool weather over the last couple of days to visit two of Paris’s underground sites, the archaeological crypt and the sewers.
The entrance to the crypt is across the plaza from Notre Dame. It has ruins from Roman times through the middle ages with explanations of how Paris grew as a city, how the ruins were discovered, and how many of them were found after old buildings had been destroyed and reused in new buildings or roads. It was interesting, and Kiera in particular seemed to like it.
The sewer tour also told the history of how Paris grew as a city, with an emphasis on the water supply (inbound, outbound, and flood mitigation). The tour takes place in an actual sewer, which means you get to see – and smell – the sewers of Paris. When the tours started decades ago, people took boat rides down the sewer, which sounds awesome, but alas is no longer offered.
The Paris sewers follow the street system. One of the neat things is that they put regular Parisian street signs in the sewers to tell the workers where they are (though the signs in this picture I don’t think correspond with actual streets up above).
At some point after Paris already had a fairly robust water delivery system, they realized that they needed to treat the water to make it safe. Updating the existing system would have been a monumental undertaking, so instead they built a new system. (This was also a monumental undertaking, but it started bearing fruit much more quickly). As the new system went in, they kept the old system in place for things like watering the public gardens and cleaning the streets. I didn’t see any indication that they ever got rid of this old system. Which gives me a newfound respect for the signs next to the sprinklers in the Jardin des Plantes that say “eau non potable.”
Today looks like it should be bright and sunny, so I think we’ll mostly be outside.
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