For every city, with its cathedrals, restaurants and swanky shops, there is a dark underbelly. Urban populations leave a huge trail of detritus, including their own human remains, and a closer look at the way the inhabitants dispose of the waste trail will often reveal more about a metropolis than its glossy veneer. Paris is no exception, and forteans can discover a more interesting side to the ‘City of Light’ by exploring its sewers, catacombs, crypts and cemeteries.

The sewers

The Paris sewers – les égouts – proudly declare themselves to be “the smelliest museum in the world”. Descending by staircase below the streets and Métro into the low-lit waste system of Paris, you are greeted by the whiff of something not very pleasant and the deafening sound of rushing water.