The Paris Sewers (28 January)

I went into the sewers with my adviser! He is writing a book on Les Misérables and asked me if I wanted to do a "miserable" tour of Paris with him. I caught him on his last European stop, after Guernsey and Jersey (where Hugo lived while in exile) and before his return to Princeton. Here are some great pictures that fortunately do not convey the smell of the experience. In the end, the sewers smell just slightly worse than Louise's bedroom.

The entrance. Looks creepy, huh? 

This is a clever giant ball they use to "filter" the contents of the water. It is just slightly smaller than the sewer pipes themselves, which create enough pressure to separate the water from the waste. What an incredible feat of engineering!

Street signs, like in the city. But for the passages in the tour. 

This is Jean Valjean from Les Misérables carrying Marius through the sewers on his back. Could the tour get any cornier? 

This is what the sewer looked like. Bellos was disappointed that we weren't actually in a boat going through the sewage. We were assured by one of the guides that while that used to be allowed, most tourists would contract horrible diseases that way and die.