Paris Sewers

On Wednesday, we descended into the tunnels under the city for an unexpectedly (for me) enjoyable couple of hours at the Paris Sewer Museum. The first few displays were somewhat disappointing -- plastic mannequins dressed up as sewer workers, newspaper clippings about TV stations' visits to the sewers, and the like. However, we soon came to something more interesting: up-to-date and fairly detailed explanations of the water cycle for the city of Paris, how water is treated to make it potable, and how waste water is again treated before it is returned to the Seine. This portion of the museum was all in French, so the group of French tourists we had been closely trailing to that point left us in the dust as Aaron and I slowly read our way through the exhibit. The explanations were actually surprisingly easy to understand, given the illustrations and some background knowledge of the topic ... it just took a little time, patience, and the occasional consultation of our handy pocket dictionary.

But the best was yet to come: after following a few twists and turns through the smellier portion of the museum (where a river of sewer water rushed continuously under the grates we were walking on), we came to a long, straight tunnel where a chronological account of the steps leading to the development of Paris' modern sewer system was given, complete with English translations. If you have any interest in urban planning, the early development of Paris, or water-related public health issues, I highly recommend it!



Enlarge this picture and you can learn how to say "sewer" in German, Spanish, Italian, AND French!



The sewers turned out to be an appropriate destination for Earth Day -- plenty of info about safeguarding our precious water resources



This being France, there was, of course, also a literary angle (a small corner of the museum dedicated to the role of the sewers in Les Miserables)



I was surprised to learn that visits to the sewers have been offered for well over 100 years



Sewer under construction in 1922



I enjoyed the trilingual signage (esp. the word besichtigungsweg)