Some more photoshop from the Land of a Thousand Frances.
Hah.
C'mon, that was funny.
An old chalk mine to the West of Paris, this has got to be one of the most amazing jaw dropping places I've ever been in. An old limestone quarry, one of many around the capital, it's been abandoned for around 70 years and now lies under a suburb.
Remember the recent thread about urban exploration and crowbars? Tell that to the two guys I found going to town on certain restrictions to free access, with an assortment of tools, a lot of cigarettes, and violent glints in their eyes. Let's just say that when French cavers want in, they want in. Now.
All I can say is ho-lee-crap. This one was huge. Vast. Massive. One of my guys' last, spontaneously organized parting gifts as I prepared to gtfo of Paris, I've simply never been in anything this utterly stunningly gynormous before.
Acres upon acres of multilevel tunnels, up, down, all around, ramps, nooks, crannies, canals, bridges, chutes and ladders, leading down into the very bowels of the Earth, hundreds upon hundreds of meters past the last desultory tags and picnic sites, and ancient rusted vehicles dumped before the advent of silly health and safety regulations (as well as locks, railroad ties, little white picket fences, and anything else that might keep a body what wants in, out).
Imagine dozens and dozens such tunnels, some with openings at the very top to alcoves which in turn led to other such tunnels, occasionally with holes to levels down below, and levels below that. I think there are about 5 levels in all, with the ceilings of the highest galleries about 30 meters up.
Deep down, it was partially flooded, with twisted rails piled up willy-nilly as improvised ladders, but thankfully, they'd left one of the stretches intact. Puttering around in abandoned mine carts, how awesome is that?
I know that I use the word "cathedral" a bit much, but this was about as close as it gets. I kept expecting to run into a Balrog around a corner.
As it turns out, it was just a bunch of other dudes who turned up randomly, having heard that someone'd taken care of getting access for the night. At one point, some of them were busy planning a picnic in the place.
Troglodytes ftw.
More, as usual, at kosmograd dot net.
Hah.
C'mon, that was funny.
An old chalk mine to the West of Paris, this has got to be one of the most amazing jaw dropping places I've ever been in. An old limestone quarry, one of many around the capital, it's been abandoned for around 70 years and now lies under a suburb.
Remember the recent thread about urban exploration and crowbars? Tell that to the two guys I found going to town on certain restrictions to free access, with an assortment of tools, a lot of cigarettes, and violent glints in their eyes. Let's just say that when French cavers want in, they want in. Now.
All I can say is ho-lee-crap. This one was huge. Vast. Massive. One of my guys' last, spontaneously organized parting gifts as I prepared to gtfo of Paris, I've simply never been in anything this utterly stunningly gynormous before.
Acres upon acres of multilevel tunnels, up, down, all around, ramps, nooks, crannies, canals, bridges, chutes and ladders, leading down into the very bowels of the Earth, hundreds upon hundreds of meters past the last desultory tags and picnic sites, and ancient rusted vehicles dumped before the advent of silly health and safety regulations (as well as locks, railroad ties, little white picket fences, and anything else that might keep a body what wants in, out).
Imagine dozens and dozens such tunnels, some with openings at the very top to alcoves which in turn led to other such tunnels, occasionally with holes to levels down below, and levels below that. I think there are about 5 levels in all, with the ceilings of the highest galleries about 30 meters up.
Deep down, it was partially flooded, with twisted rails piled up willy-nilly as improvised ladders, but thankfully, they'd left one of the stretches intact. Puttering around in abandoned mine carts, how awesome is that?
I know that I use the word "cathedral" a bit much, but this was about as close as it gets. I kept expecting to run into a Balrog around a corner.
As it turns out, it was just a bunch of other dudes who turned up randomly, having heard that someone'd taken care of getting access for the night. At one point, some of them were busy planning a picnic in the place.
Troglodytes ftw.
More, as usual, at kosmograd dot net.
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