This Halloween, two brave souls got the dubious honor of waking up among 6 million dead bodies in Paris' creepy Catacombs. Brazilian Pedro Arruda, 27, said he wasn't sure if he was lucky or unlucky when he found out he had won a contest sponsored by Airbnb to spend the night 65 feet underground. Visitors to Paris can tour the dark, 200-mile underground labyrinth (though the website warns the tour is unsuitable for "people with heart or respiratory problems, those of a nervous disposition and young children") but they don't get to stay the night. Arruda, who took his 64-year-old mother for company, doesn't fear the millions of dead roommates. "I'd be much more scared if they were alive," he said. The words "Halt, this is the realm of Death" loom above the entrance, as narrow passages and dark mazes open up into Gothic arrangements of stacked bones.
Bodies were transferred there starting in the late 1700s after Paris' public graveyards were closed. The prize included a double bed in a candle-lit stone chamber and dinner, as well as a violin concert and a storyteller to get them in the Halloween spirit. Airbnb struck a deal with Paris City Hall to donate $331,000 in exchange for using the Catacombs for the night. Arruda describes himself as a "history nerd" and said he relished the idea of waking up with the remains of great men like writers Francois Rabelais and Jean de la Fontaine as well as the feared revolutionary Georges Danton, who was guillotined. The drawback to sleeping in a chamber equipped for the dead? There is no toilet. (More Paris stories.)
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