"We Must Do The Talk Loud, Or Rats Come Here"
Written: Sep 08 '05 (Updated Sep 08 '05)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Creates a conversational talking point for many years afterwards...
Cons: ...gift shop sadly disappointing.
The Bottom Line: More of a place to go so you can say you've been, as opposed to learning about modern urban hygiene methods.
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| munkus's Full Review: Le Musee des Egouts de Paris (The Paris Sewer Muse... |
There is a certain impish glee in admitting that you not only visited Paris' sewers, but in fact paid for the pleasure. There is a certain charm in when regaling pals with your Parisian adventures in being able to say 'oh and then I went to the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Sewers, Versailles, the Musee d'Orsay...' and watching their face contort as they think they misheard you.
One of my guidebooks to Paris had a page of quirky Paris. Being a fan of unusual tourist sights, I tried visiting the Catacombs (closed for renovation), and the Musee d'Erotisme in Pigalles (DO NOT GO THERE- it costs as much as the Louvre for seven floors of antique sex aids and fertility statues). However when I finally visited the infamous Musee des Egouts, or the Sewer Museum, I thought I'd hit quirky Paris pay-dirt.
After paying my five or so euros, which seemed a bit pricey to look at where human excrement goes, I scuttled underground, out of the rain and tagged on to a guided tour that was just beginning by an ex-egoutier, or sewer worker, and a young girl doing some English translations.
Guided tours are conducted in French and English, at the same time with two tour guides. This is a nice gesture, but unfortunately in the sewer caverns the acoustic is terrible so you pretty much have to stick to your guide-of-choice like superglue to have any hope of comprehension, the echo can be so distracting. This however is a minor quibble, because unless you have an intimate desire to understand the workings of a late nineteenth-century sewerage system, you can catch the general gist by only catching a few words every now and again.
The tour took about forty-five minutes through gloomy dark caverns and tunnels. I thought we were off to a good start when the guides explained that we had to talk loudly because it scared off the rats. I don't know how true this was, or whether it was just for a bit of drama, but nonetheless it created a suitable scene-des-egouts. In each tunnel is a static display about the construction of Baron Haussman's pride and joy in his Paris reconstruction (along with such facts such as there are 2,100km of sewers in Paris, which can stretch all the way to Istanbul) or the methods used in the sewers by the egoutiers through the past century- including gigantic 'flushing carts' pulled through the sludge to keep it moving- a principle still used today though much more modernised. There is also a display showing how the uniform of the egoutier has changed in line with modern sensibilities and the discovery in the twentieth century that spending your working day knee-deep in human waste is actually rather detrimental for your wellbeing. I would've liked to find out more about the toxicity in the sewers, but this bit was too scientifically minded for our lovely young translator to keep up with and I was the only one of the group still paying attention to her by this point. This is actually not an uncommon experience in my life, especially in slightly offbeat locations. In Grade 11 they took us for a school excursion to a funeral home and I thought it was fascinating and was the only one asking questions in the mortuary about how the stop the eyelids from caving into the sockets and the like.
One of the more unusual discoveries was that the sewers follow the streets above, and the street names are used down below too. Even more bizarre, the building numbers are replicated on the walls. Sadly, there is no record of what the occupants of 37 Ave Bosquet think of tourists gawking at their waste eight times a day.
The sewers didn't smell, but it wasn't a hot day and quite rainy so maybe the waters were being flushed through much more. It has a sort of murky, old-car-interior-that-got-wet kinda smell. Also its gloomy enough down there that you're not going to see happy little French turds bobbing past, just lots of discarded violet Metro tickets and cigarette butts. You never really feel unnerved by the fact you're loitering in the sewers, except the bit where you cross a steel grill over a subterranean river below, making ominous churning noises in the dark.
The biggest disappointment of the whole Sewer Experience is the rather lack-lustre gift shop at the end of the circuit. I was hoping for turd key-rings, or discarded used condom badges but instead you get a few imitation-porcelain decorative plates in a faux-belle-epoque style celebrating the opening of the sewers, surprisingly academic and expensive photo-essay books about the sewers and the compulsory selection of pens printed by the thousand with MUSEE DES EGOUTS-PARIS in fading typeset on the side. The only highlight are the soft toy rats, that make this plague-carrying-sewer-living-tour-scaring rodent look almost cute. I feel that the gift shop is a dormant opportunity just waiting for some slightly wacko entrepreneur to snap it up.
The entrance to the museum is shown in that picture above- its literally a kiosk on the left bank side of the Pont de l'Alma in the Invalides/Tour Eiffel Quarter. It is across the road from the RER station Pont de l'Alma (on the super-useful C Line between Invalides and Tour de Eiffel), but the nearest Metro stations are both across the Seine- a short stroll along the Pont de l'Alma to Alma Marceau and Iena on Line 9. Entry is around 5 euros, with no concessions available. From memory opening hours are normal business hours plus the weekend in summer, but heavily reduced in Paris' so-called off season of winter. The descent into the sewers is by some rather slippery, damp stone stairs.
If you're on a limited time frame, you should probably give the Musee des Egouts a miss unless you're a hygiene addict or love your quirky sights- despite the novelty factor it's really not that interesting. If however you're on a longer stay and have time to spare, or have kids restless after yet more impressionists, it can be an interesting and only slightly pungent diversion.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
munkus
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Location: Ruritania
Reviews written: 205
Trusted by: 113 members
About Me:
Munkus now lives in America. He is the size of a house.
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