Inside the Paris Catacombs: What You Will See on the Route

Inside the Paris Catacombs you walk first through bare limestone quarry galleries and then, past a gate inscribed “Stop! This is the empire of Death”, into the ossuary: skulls and long bones stacked into walls along the passages, 217 of these walls in all according to the City of Paris, with about 800 metres of stacked bones, interspersed with monuments, crosses and engraved verses. Since April 2026 the route also has projections and short films in the corridors.

The quarry galleries

The first part of the route has no bones. You walk through galleries cut when the limestone under the Left Bank was quarried, reinforced from the 1770s by the city’s quarry inspectors after houses above them started to collapse. Tour listings also point out the quarrymen’s carvings along this stretch.

The ossuary gate

The ossuary begins at a doorway with the inscription “Arrête ! C’est ici l’empire de la Mort”. It was one of the tablets added by Louis-Étienne Héricart de Thury, who directed the quarry inspectorate from 1810 and turned a disordered bone store into a mausoleum meant to be visited.

The walls of bones

Behind the gate the passages are lined with hagues, walls built from femurs and tibias, with rows of skulls set into them as bands, crosses and other patterns. One restored wall, number 116, holds victims of the September Massacres of 1792, with a stele quoting Homer: “It is an impiety to insult the dead.”

Monuments and inscriptions

Héricart de Thury placed headstones and sculptures recovered from the emptied cemeteries among the bones, along with tablets carrying verses and reflections on death. Wikipedia describes rooms he created to show the minerals found under Paris and skeletal deformities found during the works.

What the guided tours add

The public route is the same for everyone, but the guided tours open gates into areas it passes by. One listing names an underground chapel decorated with skulls and femurs; another names the Crypt of Passion. See the tours with special and restricted access for which tour goes where.

Photography rules

You can take photos without flash. Tripods, selfie sticks and large camera rigs are not allowed.

How it feels

It is quiet, cool at around 14 °C, and close: the passages are narrow and low in places. Reviewers of the main entry ticket describe it as humbling and moving rather than scary, and praise the new audio guide for setting the tone. If you are claustrophobic, read are the Catacombs worth it? first.

See it yourself

The entry ticket with audio guide covers the whole public route at your own pace.