The Paris Sewer Museum “Musee des Egouts” is located in Paris and is an important part of toilet history because without sewers how is all the waste transported.
This museum is really a different way to experience the history of where the flushed water goes, as you can get an actual tour inside of the sewers.
Originally this museum used to be an attraction for visitors if they wanted to get a boat, cart or train ride inside of the sewers. All this while being able to see the developments of the sewer systems across time. It’s not up until recently that being able to walk around was introduced around the 70s.
Going a bit further back in the late 1800s is when this sewer tour found its beginnings and the sewer systems themselves were built not too long before that. Paris actually had a crisis level sanitation issue in the 13th century where the population was mainly dumping their waste in the streets and local rivers. When the sewers were first built they used to carry all drain water from street water to bathroom waste but now the systems have been changed to where this is no longer with independent systems.
The museum offers a view of the past and current sewer systems, and if you think you’re only going to walking around in empty tunnels you will be in for a surprise as this is still an active sewer system. As you walk you can view the active sewer water flowing beneath your feet, it’s a really uncommon experience. The full experience including odor is included for the admission fare of roughly 5 euros.
Currently, if you search for the museum on google it does show that it’s temporarily closed for renovations and still planned for reopening in 2019. It is unfortunate if you were planning on visiting, so many positive reviews can only mean its a really enlightening experience.
Hopefully, it opens soon enough.