Paris Catacombs Air BnB

[elleblue]

So would you stay for a night? 


Paris catacombs offer on Airbnb: spend the night with 6 million dead bodies
Halloween offer allows two people to spend a night in the underground graveyard with a ‘real bed’, dinner, breakfast and private concert

No one has ever woken up alive in Airbnb’s latest rental offer, but then again, no one has ever spent the night alongside 6 million dead Parisians in the city’s catacombs.

For Halloween, the home rental website is offering brave travellers a night in the sprawling tunnels filled with skulls and bones that is one of Paris’s most popular – and ghoulish – attractions.

The competition launched on the website offers two people a night in the catacombs on 31 October, with a “real bed”, dinner with private concert and breakfast.

For one night only, two people will have the chance to experience a Halloween night 20m under Paris in the catacombs.
For one night only, two people will have the chance to experience a Halloween night 20m under Paris in the catacombs. Photograph: Airbnb/REX Shutterstock
“Before bedtime, a storyteller will have you spellbound with fascinating tales from the catacombs, guaranteed to produce nightmares. Finally, enjoy dawn with the dead, as you become the only living person ever to wake up in the Paris catacombs,” reads the listing.

Town hall sources said on Monday the California-based Airbnb paid up to 350,000 euros to privatise the tunnels.

The transfer of human remains from Parisian cemeteries to the tunnels began towards the end of the 18th century, when authorities realised that the decomposition of bodies in the city’s cemeteries was not particularly good for public health.

“It was said that the wine was turning bad and the milk was curdling,” Sylvie Robin, the site’s curator, told AFP in an interview last year.

Among the bones lining the walls of the 2km-long (1.2-mile) tunnels – only a small part of a network of abandoned underground quarries – are pictures and quotes about mortality.

“Think in the morning that you might not survive until the evening, and in the evening that you might survive until the morning,” reads one.

The house rules section on Airbnb, which allows property dwellers and owners to rent a room or entire home, warns guests to “respect the catacombs as you would your own grave”.

The catacombs, some 20m under the sewers and metro system, lures some 500,000 visitors a year. It has already been rented out to film crews and for fashion shows.

Writers such as Victor Hugo, Gaston Leroux and Anne Rice have all drawn inspiration from the spooky network of tunnels.

Airbnb, which was launched in 2008 and now has some 40 million users worldwide, recently agreed to pay a tourist tax to Paris from each of its bookings in the city.

The website has raised the ire of traditional hotel chains who see it as a rival that flouts tax laws.

The Paris town hall said the privatisation of the Catacombs would “boost capital by finding new sources of revenue [and allow for] the preservation of this heritage site”.

[mrsd2006]

Not a chance in hell.

[nikki25]

Nope,nope,nope. I saw the movie and know how it ends. No thank you sir.

[aurora]

I think it would be pretty cool, actually.

[claudiajean]

[dragon's breath]

I'd do it!

[MeMyselfandI]

I've been to those Catacombs. They were very cool. I'd do it.

[ttt]

I feel like they had pixy in mind when they came up with this.

[redheadbaker]

[terpsfan]

Feb 29, 2016 14:20:37 GMT -5 MeMyselfandI said:

I've been to those Catacombs. They were very cool. I'd do it.

I've been in there and it was cool but there's no way I'd spend the night in there!

[tacokick]

I'd worry I would have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night

[Vespasia]

Newp.

[Skyesthelimit1212]

[downtoearth]

I have been there. I would not stay there and it seems like a weird place to stay. I think it's just too creepy.

[Deleted]

I was in until the no bathroom part.

[mrsukyankee]

I think it'd be fabulous other than the bathroom issue (being all middle aged and the like).

[sporky]

Ooh, I'd do that in a heartbeat. Of course, one of my favorite activities when I visit a city is to randomly walk around graveyards, so...

[pixy0stix]

I want to go! Pick me!

Related, and AirBnB opened up in the American Horror story house from the first season - variety.com/2016/tv/news/american-horror-story-murder-house-airbnb-1201710773/

[Daria Morgandorffer]

Feb 29, 2016 13:48:28 GMT -5 elleblue said:

“Before bedtime, a storyteller will have you spellbound with fascinating tales from the catacombs, guaranteed to produce nightmares. Finally, enjoy dawn with the dead, as you become the only living person ever to wake up in the Paris catacombs,” reads the listing.

I remember reading an article about entire groups of people that effectively live in the less-traveled areas of the catacombs. And night parties are very common. It's a pretty long shot to say that nobody has ever woken up there, lol. 

[downtoearth]

Feb 29, 2016 17:04:05 GMT -5 Daria Morgandorffer said:

Feb 29, 2016 13:48:28 GMT -5 elleblue said:

“Before bedtime, a storyteller will have you spellbound with fascinating tales from the catacombs, guaranteed to produce nightmares. Finally, enjoy dawn with the dead, as you become the only living person ever to wake up in the Paris catacombs,” reads the listing.

I remember reading an article about entire groups of people that effectively live in the less-traveled areas of the catacombs. And night parties are very common. It's a pretty long shot to say that nobody has ever woken up there, lol. 

Plus both the French resistance and the Nazi occupiers used the catacombs during WWII, so I imagine some stayed down there or hid down there.  I think they even told us on the tour that a lot of the bone rearrangement and such was done by convicted criminals who also lived down there for certain periods.  It's the volume and arrangements that got to me - like miles of thigh bones with interspersed skulls for decoration or thousands of skulls and you can tell when some were kids or beat.  It's just too real for me.

[pumpkin]

I've been in those and wouldn't want to spend the night. And especially without a bathroom.

[elleblue]

I never need to use the bathroom overnight but I bet it'd be one of those situations where I'd totally feel like I have to just because I can't. lol

[meshaliuknits]

This sounds like camping. I'm a no BEFORE I get to the inevitability of the dead rising.

[LeggsBenedict]

[iammalcolmx]

Do I really need to answer this question?

[cattledogkisses]

I'm weirdly fascinated by catacombs and ossuaries (this place has always piqued my morbid interest: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedlec_Ossuary ).

I wouldn't be averse to spending the night there, as long as I didn't have to do it alone.

[tiramisu]

FUUUUUCK NO! Not a single chance. I'll stay in the pretty parts of Paris instead of the creepy ones.

[Aquatica]

The weird part of me wants to say yes but I know it would be a nope! The paranoid part of me thinks if I did this, some evil spirit would follow me home for being disrespectful to the dead.

[sushi]

I'm in

I've been to an ossuary. This is nbd

[alleinesein]

Built in climate control and no sunlight to wake me up early...I'm in!