Eau de Toilette in Paris – literally.
David Whitley eschews the romance of Paris for a stroll around the city’s sewers.

Under moonlight, a couple stroll arm in arm along the Seine, the Eiffel Tower looming in the background, and the quiet chatter of the café terraces fizzing through the night. This is what Paris is about. The most romantic city on earth: a place for young lovers to fall deeper and for older ones to rediscover what they saw in the first place. Sickening, isn’t it?

If that’s your take on all the mushiness, you can pretty much guarantee to be away from the couples at what is unquestionably the city’s least romantic attraction. After all, any suitor who decided to take the apple of his eye on a tour of the sewers would soon find himself buying microwave meals for one.

There is no disguising the smell down there. Whilst inexplicably dressed as a tourist attraction, there is no avoiding what is flowing through those murky underground channels. Many of the hardy sightseers have handkerchiefs over their noses, whilst one woman hares through the exhibition as quickly as possible to get out.

In truth, though, the smell isn’t too bad, and the whole thing is actually rather fascinating. Laid out along the dripping pipes over damp floors is the story of the city’s water supply. Where it comes from, where it goes to, and what’s done with it once it has been used, the tale is followed from start to finish. Who would have guessed that the decantation and biological treatment process could be quite so gripping?

There is something of the fairground about the presentation too. Everything could have been nicely sanitised in a bid to draw more people in, but – like a ghost train or rollercoaster – things have been deliberately left dark and rickety for atmospheric purposes. On the first stretch, you pass a window that has stuffed rats in it, gaily frolicking in a meadow. Then there’s a tap with a sign saying that the water is safe to drink. Er, I’ll pass, thanks.

The cobwebbed tunnels are suitably claustrophobic, whilst the shaky grilles you walk on feel like they could give way at any moment, sending you sliding into the sloshing streams of gunk underfoot. Ugh… it looks like the devil’s bathtub down there.
Should the stomach be able to deal with the smell for a sustained period of time, the history of the city’s water supply is next up. It was all so easy to start with. In Roman times, only 6,000 people lived in Lutetia, as Paris was known then. The water came from the Seine, and the waste went on to the fields. But with a growing population, this became painfully inadequate, and in the Middle Ages, open sewers ran through the streets, and waste festered in puddles. The result was plague, and other solutions had to be found. Over the years, as soon as one problem was solved, another was created. From not having enough water, to metre-high methane bubbles being released downriver, it’s been a constant battle between man and nature.

Worst/ best of all are the machines used to keep the sewers going, and they are distinctly unglamorous buckets of rust. Depending on the size of the waterway, a number of techniques are used. The primary one is pumping more water in to push the rest of it along, but the nasty stuff still has to be scraped off the bottom of the pipes. That’s where dredging machines and boats come in. Some poor souls have to sit all day inside these things. Pleasure cruising it is not.

The sewer tour (+ 33 1 5368 2781, www.egouts.idf.st) is open from Saturday to Wednesday each week, with entry costing EUR4.