My last day in Paris. Sad Face.

I checked out of my hotel early this morning so I could finish seeing a few of the sights. I got on the metro and caught the train to Invalides so I could see the tomb of Napoleon. It was pretty spectacular, he was in his own crypt in a basilica. The tomb itself is more like a sarcophagus, made out of red stone. It was as big as those used by the ancient Egyptians. At the entrance to the crypt stood two huge black statues and the basilica looks almost the same as St. Peters in Rome. The one thing that did surprise me about the monument is that Napoleon's name is not mentioned anywhere.

After Napoleons tomb I headed for the catacombs, which had a huge queue outside that went half way around the block. I looked at the queue wondering if my feet could take anymore of this kind of crap and eventually got in it. It was something I really wanted to see.

Upon entering the catacombs, I had to go down a seemingly endless spiral staircase, it went so far down into the earth that I got dizzy going down it and had to stop a few times. Once at the bottom I reached the entrance to a long corridor, which went on for about five hundred meters, at the end there was a sign in French that said something along the lines of, this is the dominion of the dead. Which was pretty awesome, and spooky.

I proceeded inside and nothing could have prepared me for what I was seeing. Mountains of ornately stacked bones and skulls, in corridors than went on for miles, all bathed in the eerie glow of the sepulchral lamps. There were so many. The only way I can describe the feeling of seeing this is cold insignificance.

After ascending from the catacombs, a mammoth task I had been dreading the entire visit, I went for a quick look at the shopping district of St Germain des Pres before going back to the hotel and collecting my mountain of stuff and heading off for London.

I walked down to the metro and got on a very crowded train with all my stuff and then got off at Gare de Nord and checked in for the Eurostar. This was a much simpler process to the airport and only took about twenty minutes for the formalities side of the trip, due in no small part to my having a British passport.

The train ride took about two and half hours and was pretty uneventful and that was it I was in London. I hopped on the tube out to Borough and checked into the Dover Castle Hostel. After four years its good to be back in London!