Lauren is a Mexico City–based writer, editor, and translator from Yorkshire with bylines at CNN, BBC Travel, and Al Jazeera. She’s currently working on her first full-length literary translation in between harassing her cat, drinking smuggled Yorkshire Tea, and blogging about Latin American literature at leyendolatam.com.
Lauren is a Mexico City–based writer, editor, and translator from Yorkshire with bylines at CNN, BBC Travel, and Al Jazeera. She’s currently working on her first full-length literary translation in between harassing her cat, drinking smuggled Yorkshire Tea, and blogging about Latin American literature at leyendolatam.com.
Hi, I'm Lauren!Lauren is a Mexico City–based writer, editor, and translator from Yorkshire with bylines at CNN, BBC Travel, and Al Jazeera. She’s currently working on her first full-length literary translation in between harassing her cat, drinking smuggled Yorkshire Tea, and blogging about Latin American literature at leyendolatam.com.
Hi, I'm Lauren!Lauren is a Mexico City–based writer, editor, and translator from Yorkshire with bylines at CNN, BBC Travel, and Al Jazeera. She’s currently working on her first full-length literary translation in between harassing her cat, drinking smuggled Yorkshire Tea, and blogging about Latin American literature at leyendolatam.com.
Italian born and bred, tour guide Fabrizia first moved to the City of Love back in 2011 for, quite appropriately, amour—and she’s still finding plenty to keep her enamoured with the French capital to this day.
“I started guiding in Paris in 2012, [first] as a tour leader … [and then] as a licensed guide,” she says. These days, you’ll find her taking tour groups in and among the gargoyles (and beheaded saint statue) of the Notre Dame area on the Ghosts, Mysteries, and Legends: Night Walking Tour of Paris. Beyond the spooky sights and sounds? Expect “compelling stories and anecdotes [for] a fun way to uncover the secrets hidden behind the city’s most famous highlights.”
With a bloody history marked by riotous revolutions, public guillotining, and labyrinthine catacombs, it’s little wonder Paris has such a haunting spirit (and corresponding joie de vivre). As Fabrizia points out, the city has long been populated by “powerful characters [with] sinister habits and bloody plans.” You can’t create a City of Light without casting some shadows, after all.
Paris’ many cemeteries—including the perennially popular Père Lachaise and its A-List inhabitants such as Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison—are obvious stops for fans of the undead. However, Fabrizia's keen to highlight another infamous Parisian hangout: the Paris Catacombs, “a must if you want to go literally “deeper” into the spooky stories.”
If you'd rather swap the haunted hordes for uncanny curios, she recommends heading to the Paris Sewer Museum (Musée des Égouts de Paris) or the Musée des Moulages de l'Hôpital Saint-Louis, which is home to more than 4,000 medical wax casts from the past. Per Fabrizia: “it could sound weird, but it’s definitely worth a visit!” Even the north Parisian suburbs have secrets to share, such as the mysterious tumuli once used as tombs or for rituals.
“Sort of a mini museum of the macabre,” Fabrizia recommends visiting Le Manoir de Paris in the 10th district, which brings together the city’s top myths and legends in one walk-through haunted house. (There’s also an annual Halloween extravaganza held there.)
If you’re more interested in mixing witches brews than experiencing real-life jump scares, make for one of the city’s only esoteric eateries. At Café Contresort, color-changing lemonades and cocktails named for Voodoo priestesses are par for the course.
Book a room at the Hôtel Ritz (no, not the Ritz-Carlton) for a spooky overnight stay in Paris. Not only has this opulent spot hosted big-name guests over the years, it was also where fashion designer and alleged Nazi operative Coco Chanel died back in 1971. Rumor has it that her ghost still haunts the halls to this day.
Parisian myths and legends abound, from the snip-happy barber who supposedly butchered students along the Rue de la Chânoinesse and turned them into pies (all very Sweeney Todd of him) to the spooky spirits of Pigalle.
Fabrizia has a particular favorite, though—the Red Man of the Louvre who stalks the shadows of the fortress-turned-foremost art museum. Said to have been the one-time henchman of Queen Catherine de Medici, the paranoid royal had him murdered in the 16th century. (Even Napoleon claimed to have spotted him shimmying about the place.)
