I’d like to say that I’m disappointed you have the Notre Dame Cathedral listed, but don’t have the fabulously misleading Palais Garnier in Paris, France listed amongst your morbid sights!

To the non-franciasophiles, the Palais Garnier is most commonly known as the Paris Opera House. It was built between 1862 and 1875 by French architect Charles Garnier, and is the only theatre in the world to boast being built over thousands of corpses, a brief stint as a prison, a fatal accident involving a falling counterweight, and being the abode of the most famous, and well-traveled, ghost in the world!

(Not my site, but there are some phenomenal pictures here: http://www.viennaslide.com/paris/se-0530-23.htm)

Theatres are always charged full of spooky energy, especially opera houses where the fantastic and morbid were played out every night in front of a charged audience, and especially old opera houses which add the history of centuries to the already supernatural air.

But in addition to being able to catch a ballet here (with any luck you can sit in the exact seat where, in 1896, one of the counterweights for the massive chandelier broke loose and crashed through the ceiling, killing an unfortunate patron), they host tours of the building and on rare occasion have allowed groups down into the labyrinth-like cellars that inspired an author by the name of Gaston Leroux to pen his classic, The Phantom of the Opera, which has been adapted into several movies and a hit musical that has played around the world. Besides being inspired by the building, Leroux was so impressed with it’s macabre splendour that he set his story here as well, giving his Phantom a home in it’s lair-like cellars.

Unguided groups aren’t allowed near the basement, and no tourists are allowed past the third cellar because of the high risk of getting lost, or getting caught in a collapse. However, if you did manage to end up in the fifth floor of the cellar, hundreds feet below ground, you would find yourself in a black cavern containing an underground lake. Wander down one of the side passages and you’ll find yourself in the Communards Cellar where, during the 1871 Seige of Paris, the half-finished building was used as a prison and munition storage. Nearly a hundred prisoners were chained to the walls and left alone in the darkness, with just the steady dripping of water and the fear of instant death caused by a too-careless guard around the stores of gunpowder. To this day, you can see initials carved into the walls next to rusted manacles.

If you manage to get yourself hopelessly lost you may end up in the catacombs, which are connected to the opera cellars in several places. Get lost down there and you could never be found, as the catacombs are labyrinthian, stretching under most of Paris, and filled to the brim with human skeletons.

You can see why this historic, and beautiful, building is truly a morbid sight to see. (Not to mention why I’m a teeny bit enamored with it.)