The mercury will approach 40°C this Saturday in Paris, after already very high temperatures in recent hours.
Enough to push Parisians to look for freshness for the weekend.
From the metro to the catacombs, passing through more unknown places, Le Parisien offers you several ideas for where to go out to escape the heat wave.
Metro line 3bis
LP/Olivier Arandel
A cool subway with nobody?
Welcome to line 3 bis.
Connecting Gambetta and Porte des Lilas stations, it is the shortest metro line in Paris with just four stations over a distance of just over a kilometer (for four minutes).
It is also the least used line of the network.
If the trains are not air-conditioned there (unlike lines 1, 2, 5, 9 and 14), it is cool there.
And for good reason: the stations are deep - all, except that of Gambetta, are built between 19 and 25 meters below the surface.
Another good point: there is nobody and therefore we are quiet.
It can be a good plan, then… for those who would like to go back and forth between Gambetta and Porte des Lilas in the cool.
The catacombs of Paris
LP/Yann Foreix
This “good plan” is above all a budget.
Count 29 euros if you book in advance, 15 euros if you buy your ticket the same day (and it's free for those under 18 in this case) at the risk that there is no more square.
Located 20 meters underground, the Catacombs of Paris are the ideal place to escape the intense heat.
The temperature stays there continuously at 14°C – you even have to cover up for the most chilly!
There is therefore freshness, but also a beautiful setting: that of an enormous ossuary where tens of thousands of skeletons rest.
The area that can be visited by the public, from Place Denfert-Rochereau, is only a tiny part, but it is the most beautiful: along a gallery, there are the ordered skeletons of architectural material.
The Sewer Museum
LP/Olivier Arandel
Again, you have to go underground to find freshness.
The Paris sewer museum, located six meters deep below the surface, offers an average temperature of 13°C.
Near the Pont de l'Alma, in the 7th arrondissement, it just reopened at the end of last year after three years of closure.
The public can discover there the operation of the sewers in the capital, but also the too little known and yet necessary profession of sewer worker.
It's a good plan which nevertheless represents a budget: an entry costs 9 euros (7 euros for large families).
The artisans' tunnel
It is not the most beautiful district of Paris, but it is full of a nugget: the craftsmen's tunnel, located not far from Bercy Village, in the 12th arrondissement, is the last refrigerator in the capital.
Built in 1840, its stone structure maintains a year-round temperature of 14°C.
Many craftsmen – hence its name – have settled there in order to take advantage of these ideal temperature conditions for working and storing products.
Note however that, if it is truly a curiosity, this refrigerator will not impress: it is above all a place of work rather than a place of tourism.
Good point: it's free!
