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Originally Posted by american perv
yup! its very cool..
in college we used to explore the tunnels under it, didn't know there was a term of it until a few years ago.
also, I hear in paris there are some incredible tunnels
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Paris is an exception.
Most (excluding about 5) arrondissements in Paris have cavities underneath them.
Back in the day when Paris was growing and expanding, people found hte perfect source of their limestone was beneath their feet, and heavily mined it.
Naturally, the obvious began to happen, and sections started to sink / cave in. It was so decreed that land owners had to make tunnels under their land, in an attempt to crisscross / swiss cheese the caverns, so the lattice effect would create a stronger reinforcement.
This was a sweeping success - and so the quarries were born.
In France, there's a massive difference between the Urban explorers and the 'cataphiles' - and in the past, their taste for exploration has ended up in battles, which is slightly amusing.
Anyhow - the point is, the Paris underground is vast. I've seen maps that cover an A3 page, with kilometers taking up just a few inches. A friend of mine spent 16 hours walking down there, and barely crossed any.
Because of the uniform nature of the tunnels, even with a map, it's super easy to get lost - people have died down there, and as such, the 'quarry police' - a special division of gerdame are assigned to stop people from entering. Despite the vastness of the quarries, there are only a handfull of accessible entry points.
Regardless, there a quite a few groups that enjoy being underground - it's not uncommon to walk through the quarries and come across various gatherings and parties - more often than not obvlivious of the other groups; During the war, the Allies and Nazis both had HQs in the quarries, and neither group was the wiser to their opponent's presence.
When I was over in Paris, a lot of shit went down about the quarries - if you read french-
Anyhow. Some of the quarries join into the osseries (or in english, the catacombs), but it's wrong to think that the entirity of the Paris underground is a catacomb.
End of lecture ;)