What city could create greater expectations than Paris? A rich legacy of urban exploration back to the first recognised cataphile Philibert in 1793 started what has long been an exploring hotspot. Uninterested in partaking in the 'I spent 389.5 hours in the catacombs' wang challenge I approached Paris with the intention of exploring a variety of locations amongst my tourist wanderings. Once you get past the catacomb induced tunnel vision you realise Paris has more to offer the curious than stones and bones. James, to Paris!

The cataphiles tend to keep within their own forums and their own complex world. It's so easy to simply pop into the catas it becomes a lifestyle beyond a hobby. They explore, play and party in the catacombs so much that the catas become a backdrop. Our first night in the 14th took a brief interlude when we accepted the invitation to a game of cards from another roaming band of cataphiles. A large mound of rocky dirt substituted for green felt and tealight candles soaked the room in warm light. The language barrier pervades even playing cards - the face cards King, Queen and Jack are marked as Roi, Dame and Valet. It's contrary to my previous exploring experiences and totally surreal to encounter others underground, befriend them and part ways as quickly as we met. For Paris this an average week night. On my next to last night there was a massive party in the well known German bunker. Whether you want to explore, socialise, dig or kick it low key the catas can accommodate you. Though not all encounters are so pleasant as the catas are also home to the fliks aka catacomb police. Wallet damage: 120 euros.

The highlight of the catacombs was the secret dual stair mineralogical room, unearthed over 6 years of digging and hauling rock and dirt. It's a 5 minute elbow killing crawl but noone goes there, so for an hour of sensory deprivation it formed our little haven. Our meandering route to the exit led us into the merriment of two cataphiles nibbling cheese and swilling wine all to the sweet sounds of classical tunes. Where else but Paris could you meet someone in such a state? Certainly not in the storm/sewers of London. I wager a Londoner met underground wouldn't even break stride to say hello or apologise for the sewerfreshness they splashed in passing. Hustle hustle hustle.



Paris is sprinkled with racks of bikes which facilitate rapid and inexpensive transit around the city at 3am. More importantly bikes provide a high degree of invulnerability as you taunt drunks and hookers. It doesn't matter what you say or the language used, Mister Doppler and his slur take care of that.



EDF neatly fits my perceived mental image of the powertunnel environment - an expansive interconnected network of tunnels filled to the brim with racks of fat dirty cables. They're far less popular than the catas as evidenced by minimal graffiti and less lootage - lots of tidy little markers, signs and tags are still attached to walls and cables. Below the cables' black plastic sheath is a narrow layer of oil which, as the cables age and decay tends to leak out and trickle sticky black goop down the racks and onto the floor. It's like the scenes in aliens with xenomorph acid blood dripping through the floors. I half expected an alien or two to charge screeching up the tunnel.



Pumped up on illegal(!) energy drinks twinky-z and I packed superlight to give Paris a fitting final night. High places, low places and maybe even some bollard assisted manhole demolition. First job for the night: a 14th century rooftop high above the sea of low rise buildings. The tunnel riddled ground of Paris is not strong enough to support skyscrapers. To build the only one in Paris the underlying catacombs were pumped full of concrete to provide a stable base.

Two quick scaff ascents interrupted by a short path around the roof's circumference leads to a photogenic intermediate rooftop. While crossing the tiled peaks of this roof we discovered, by the fortuitous angle of the moonlight, booted footprints upon the slate. Moments after our find less than 30m across from a lone figure rose upon a high gable to silhouette against the sky. He looked around briefly and vanished again. Though we'd been stationary, my position was half silhouetted against the sky also. Movement is easily detected by our eyes in the dark. In these situations do you freeze knowing your position puts you at risk or move slowly in an attempt to improve it?

Positive any security guard or authority figure would have spotlighted/yelled at us we scampered across the rooftop and up to a peak which overlooked the figure's estimated position. The neat squarish glow of an LCD gave him up as another photographer (score one for film stealth). He had a friend but we'd only seen one set of footprints, odd. Is there anywhere safe in Paris for the hermit-like, misanthropic explorer? It's not often you can sit atop the roof of a building from the 1600s and turning slowly in a full revolution see such famous landmarks - the Effiel Tower, St Sulpice, Notre Dam and a load of other inner city landmarks. Paris really has something for everyone.



Subways are a special mix everything I love in exploring. Risky live infiltration of active underground infrastructure. Subways are critical to the growth and development of their cities and I believe they play a greater historical role than most of the institutional and industrial locations explorers look upon as being historically important. I suspect this is because less tangible artifacts of direct human interaction are obvious in the tunnels, as compared to an asylum where most of the remaining objects have very intimate human uses.

In the overall scope of city development the subways/metro/tube play a huge part. Prior to the London Tube's construction blue collar families lived in overcrowded, unhealthy inner city houses. The London Underground gave these workers the means to live further from the city in cheaper, larger accommodations and commute daily into the city center. Whole communities developed in areas serviced by these early tube lines. Google 'Metro-land' for an example of a London community created by rail accessibility. The Tube and the Metro are big, old and historically important and best of all - adventurous. Our entry into the Metro was suitably convoluted for my taste but email me with a compelling argument and we can talk shop.



Last order of business, manhole demolition. twinky-z lifted a rogue bollard above his head and drove it into welded corner of the manhole. At this very moment, reality clobbered me over the head in a similar fashion and I took stock of my life. I am well rounded, university educated, gainfully employed in a professional job with a long term girlfriend. I have a small stock portfolio, I read the paper most mornings and I'm quickly saving money for an investment property. My closet has almost as many button-up long sleeve shirts as t-shirts and yes my trousers have pin stripes. From this mental audit I have a lot of responsible things listed. I am a fine upstanding member of society. I could use foundation to move into a respectable career, start a family, contribute to the gene pool!

Instead, tell me why the fuck at this moment I'm standing covered in an alchemist's mixture of powertunnel oil, subway grease, catacomb dust and rooftop grime, beside a crazy fool battering a manhole with a large chunk of steel at 4am on a Monday morning destroying the serenity of a picturesque Parisian boulevard.

Difficult I know, the question confused me momentarily to. Justly I countered it with "Life is more fun this way" and that was that. The battering continued. Unfortunately our new cata entrance legacy was not to be but I added another thing to the list of things I never thought I would find myself doing. Travel to gorgeous foreign cities and attempt to demolish their manholes, check.

With 2 hours sleep, Gremlin and I shambled to the eurostar and straight into work. Big Ups BHV Fred (or was that GHB Fred?), Rocco and twinky-z. No foxes were unleashed in the events recounted in this document.