Paris is a truly beautiful city with stunning places to visit - the Eiffel Tower, Sacre Couer, Musée D'Orsay, Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, to name but a few. I expect most people visiting Paris, have a few snapshots of all of these places, but as you may have noticed I like to visit the more unusual visitor attractions. Yes, I have been to all the places I've mentioned, but I felt that there must be somewhere a bit more off the beaten track - and then I read about the Musée des Égouts de Paris (the Paris Sewer Museum)! I immediately decided this was a place that I wanted to visit! Why you may ask, is she mad? The answer to that is probably, but if I explain my visit, you may think I'm only slightly barmy! You can tell me what you think on that score after you've finished reading!
The guidebook said about this museum "A sewer museum has now been established where visitors can discover the mysteries of underground Paris. There are also displays of machinery used in the past and in the sewers of today." Sounds quite harmless I thought, so off I went in search of the address.
Location ******** The museum had a strange address - in front of 93 Quai d'Orsay 75007 - not a specific address - i.e. not a particular building!! The nearest Metro is Pont-de-l'Alma which is in actual fact an RER line (C - coloured yellow on a Metro map). The only way I can relate RER lines to England is saying they are not quite an Underground line - more like a local train service - they don't stop as many times as a Metro train and they can use double decker trains.
So, anyway, when I found the address, I looked around, and saw on the opposite side of the street, next to the Seine, a little booth and a few people hanging around outside. So off I went to investigate, and discovered this was in fact the ticket booth for the Musée des Égouts de Paris, but where was the museum?
Ticket Prices ************ I confess I visited this museum at the end of last year and I don't know what the exact price is now in Euros - I've scoured the internet and it seems to be €3.80. However, I didn't have to cough up any dosh anyway, as I had a Museum and Monuments Pass which covers the entrance fee for a number of the Paris attractions including this one.
I got my ticket and discovered that the entrance to the museum was on the opposite side of the booth - there was a set of stairs going down - hmm, are we actually visiting some old sewers, I thought?
So down the stairs I went with a little trepidation, wondering what on earth I had let myself in for, and wondering if I should have brought a clothes peg! I really was not expecting real sewers - it was a museum after all, but it was indeed real sewers!! You sort of take yourself around the museum - following signs on the wall with information about the area where you are and the machinery that is in front of you. Basically, sewers can get a bit blocked, so rather than send people in to shovel it out, they have some machinery to do the job for them!! There is also a small bit of an old sewer you can walk through - it's clean - no waste has been left in it!
Then you move on to an area where they set up lots of boards with information about how the Paris sewers started - they had previously used the Seine for drinking water and for waste and lots of people surprisingly became ill!! Then they developed the sewer system, with the Paris sewers being one of the best laid out sewers in the world, and they are proud of it! In fact up until 1975, a visit to the Paris sewers involved going on a rowing boat in the actual sewer, mmm, don't quite know if I fancy that!
But to be honest, I found all this information, really interesting. We all use our bathrooms, but don't give much thought to what happens after that. What would happen if we didn't have sewers? The information in the exhibit tells you what Paris was like without sewers - not a pretty vision, so I'm grateful to the guys who had the forethought to develop the wonderful system of sewers they have today - not just in Paris, but everywhere. It's an incredible feat that's been achieved, and it's right that there should be a museum to celebrate it.
Smell ****** To start with there was no smell, I was incredibly surprised and grateful too! But as you go round to where the exhibit boards are, it does get a little whiffy! I had to walk round with my hand covering my nose until I got used to the smell. The smell was more like a rotting rubbish smell, rather than bodily functions smell!! I understand that if you visit in the summer it can get very smelly! You do walk past the open sewer and you can stand there and inspect the contents - not as bad as I thought - mostly you see lots of plastic bottles! In the last area there are also lots of little flies - I did walk around this bit with my mouth firmly shut not uttering a word, just in case! Not knowing quite where these flies had been, I didn't want to take the chance of accidentally swallowing one!
Museum Shop ************ Surprisingly enough there was a museum shop, I just hadn't expected one!! You can get the usual pens, key rings, umbrellas, etc. with the museum logo on! I did have to buy a pen!
You then go back up some stairs into the open air as your visit has ended and I did just have to take a long deep breath when I surfaced!
Opening hours ************* 11.00 - 17.00 from May 1st to September 30th 11.00 - 16.00 from October 1st to April 30th Shut on Thursdays and Fridays It is also shut for 3 weeks in January - not specified which weeks. It also may shut in a period of heavy rain as the sewers may then become unsafe to visit!
Do I recommend? *************** A heartfelt yes. It was a fascinating visit. It wasn't anything like I expected, in fact it was better than I expected. I really hadn't appreciate the feat of engineering before and I really think that they deserve to be applauded for what has been achieved in modern society to ensure that we have clean drinking water and a system for waste for such huge cities. I think it's around 1/5th of the world population does not have clean drinking water - we wouldn't either, without the system of sewers that were developed for us. Paris are deservedly proud of their sewers!! Don't worry about the smell - you do get used to it, or if you are really concerned, take your clothes peg!!
But do you trust me? Well, I didn't visit the sewers on my own and what did my fellow travellers think? On their return home, what did they enjoy most on their visit? Yes, it was the sewers! And I would agree with them!
Thank you for reading.
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