Catacombes...tour or go it alone?

My friends and I are interested in seeing the catacombes. Not sure whether this is something we can take a look at ourselves (no, not the whole thing...I understand that it%26#39;s huge!!) or would we get more out of it if we took a tour. Would a tour be worth the money?

Okay, second question...can anyone suggest a good (inexpensive!) tour?

Thanks!

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Go it alone. There are people stationed along the way to keep watch on things, but this certainly isn%26#39;t anything that you would need to pay extra money for to have a tour guide.

Many places offer audio guides. This allows you to go at your own pace and receive all the education info that a tour guide would provide in your native language.

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You can quite easily tour through the Catacombs all on your own. There are tours available at the site that you can take for an additional 5 €uro. Bear in mind that you enter the Catacombes from the Place Denfret-Rochereau, you will EXIT at a DIFFERENT LOCATION, a few blocks away, through a non-descript %26#39;hole-in-the-wall, at 36 Rue Remy Dumoncel.

Le CATACOMBES de PARIS--

www.v2asp.paris.fr/musees/musee_carnavalet/

http://triggur.org/cata/

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I was just there and you don%26#39;t need a guide unless you REALLY want to hear more about the history of the catacombs. There are placards (in French, English and Italian) throughout which give information about how they were created and why and they were good enough for me.

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The history is quite simple : there were stone quaries emptied as they were digging out the stne, leaving empty corridors. Then several cemeteries were emptied in the end of the 18th century, to be closed down for hygienic reasins. All the bones were transfered to the empty corridors underground, lining up skulls and bones in a sort of %26quot;design%26quot;. That%26#39;s it, you have saved 5 euros.

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I would agree, to go it alone. We went on a Sun. morning, and few people were there. It was worth seeing. The trip down, and then the stairway back up again is quite narrow and seemed a bit long. By the time we were wondering %26quot;how much farther?%26quot;, we were back at the top.