Paris basement

The sewers of Paris
Alma, left bank, facing 93 quai d'Orsay bridge. 75007 Paris
Saturday to Wednesday from 11: 00 to 16: 00 / 17: 00
€4,30 / reduced €3,50
01 53 68 27 81

These are the only Sewage System of Paris open to the public in France. In addition, they extend over 2 400 km2. Can you imagine, how many people are needed to take care of this huge underworld?

Only 250 sewage workers are employed by authorities, including only 5 women! It is a difficult, dangerous working conditions in a humid atmosphere and sometimes a little smelly. But this is normal, we are in the gutters!

The working environment of these workers are conducive to disease. Therefore, adequate equipment, from head to feet: boots and waders, rubber overalls in case the water level is high. In the event of high rate of gas in the air, a detector warns them so that they can wear their gas mask with a lifespan of 15 min.

For their personal safety, the workers must be equipped from head to toe, in order to avoid exposure to the outdoor environment conducive to disease. It is a single-use combination. Tights and boots or even overalls are strongly recommended in the case of a too high water level.

Fortunately, every 50 meters, guards are ready to move the plates leading to the surface. A sewer plate weighs between 80 and 100kg. This is why the sewer use a handy device called the survey-buffer. Just one hand to lift 100kg. The Herculean class!

The worker cleans the sewers in order to purify the water. In doing such, they to go through 3 types of gutters: elementary sewers, secondary manifolds, and finally, main collectors. The smallest are quite narrow, to find them, they are given the names of the streets to the surface.

We meet hundreds of pipes, large, small, medium but some are all wet, and others not. Well, the pipes that «gouttaient» were those which contained very fresh spring water. Others contain water clean, but not edible!

We invite you to get in vacation rental ile de france (Métro Alma-Marceau) for the unusual visit to the Paris sewers.