This morning we headed up to the Seine again on foot - we are learning the route now... I forgot which bridge we were supposed to go to but then I verified the location using a metro stop - we were 2 bridges away. We arrived for the sewer museum opening just on time. We walked down the stairwell with our English translation of the tour in hand. The tour begins with a historical account of how the city developed and what happened to the daily waste. As the population grew so did the industrial wastes that were being diverted into the Seine. When Hausmann was revolutionizing the city, he commissioned Belgrand to design a system where the wastewater was discharged far downstream from Paris. The tour showed the results of the 1910 flood that lasted for well over a month. One of the sewermen recorded daily the situation by hand. The memoire is still preserved for others to read. The historical account began with the initial population and the romans and why water was important to each of their livelihoods. The initial "sewers" just drained to the center of the city streets and then went into the river. Over time there were deeper ditches created to collect the street runoff. These ditches were then covered with arches and then the arches were buried thus our current idea of a sewer. In addition to the historical account of the sewers they took the time to educate the public on how the water is cleaned today prior to entering supply lines. They also clean the water before it is being discharged. The rest of the tour focused on the sewermen and their clean apparatus... the cleaner balls push the sand along the pipe so they don't get clogged. Divits in the pipe are created so the sand will settle and they can put in a vacuum of sorts to pull out the accumulated sand. They had flushers to push the solid debris forward and then the claw to lift it into a collection bin. You could see the stairs leading to the mainholes. I was VERY glad that we visited in the winter - I can only imagine the stench in the summer heat. Also, you walk across grates over the sewer water - if you have a fear of grates this may not be the tour for you.
After our underground experience, we were very excited to be in the open air again. The children decided that although we were not going into the Eiffel Tower without dad they wanted to touch it. We did not know that the four legs of the tower end in buildings. We had to settle for taking REALLY close pictures and gazing up at the top. We wandered along the gardens and then decided to eat.
We stopped at La Terrasse and dined on salmon, mussels, and beef stew. It was wonderful to come inside and warm up again. We wandered back to the apartment and collapsed with another fine dinner of wine and cheese.
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