Dante's Inferno in Paris

Châtelet-les Halles, more like Châtelet-les-Hell

I went to the same bar twice last week - it’s called Hall’s Beer Tavern and it’s in Châtelet. If you don’t know Paris, Châtelet is arguably the true centre of the city. It’s right by le musée du Louvre and is defined by its huge shopping complex: a large, futuristic Westfield whose roof arches like a smaller Wembley Stadium or the back of a terrifying beetle. It almost reminds me of the famous aquarium in Valencia, with its curving roof and space-age design. It doesn’t fit in Paris though. You know what, I’ve found the right comparison. Approaching it front on makes it look like a manta ray or the hull of a catamaran.

It has an oblong shape and around the structure, outside, there is a square that is flanked by fast food shops and people loitering on warlike e-bikes. Inside, it’s like something you’d picture reading a description of hell in Aeneid Book 6 or in Dante’s Divine Comedy. In the middle of the manta ray structure, there is a large gaping hole. I’m not joking when I say this. The shopping centre operates on 3 levels that progressively delve deeper underground. Escalators take you from floor to floor and there are passages leading away from the hole to cinemas and bland shopfronts perfect for anyone who wants to waste hours in mind-numbing, soul-destroying désoeuvrement.

The three floors of consumerist bliss are literal circles of hell: gluttony, heresy, and greed.

If you go even further down the hole, you arrive at Châtelet-Les Halles metro, arguably the most important underground station in Paris. It’s also totally unnavigable. 5 metro lines have a stop at Châtelet and so do all 3 lines of the commuter trains, the RER. From this station, seemingly below the earth’s crust, you can reach 302 other metro stations across the capital. It’s also thought to be the world’s largest underground rail facility. Compared to Shinjuku station or even Ikebukuro in Tokyo, surely, it falls short? Nevertheless, I would avoid it at all costs if I were you.

I went to see my friend Rodrigo at Hall’s Beer Tavern last Friday evening. On Google Maps, it was meant to take me 17 minutes from my office in Le Marais - a direct route on Metro Line 1 from Saint-Paul station, named after the glorious church that you see as soon as you exit. The journey on the train is short and Line 1 is the most reliable, high-tech, and orderly route - it runs along The Seine, through all the tourist hotspots, so there’s a reason to make it work and look nice. Once you arrive at Châtelet, it takes about 10 minutes just to walk out from the station. This is mostly due to there being 19 exits scattered over a 2-mile radius.

Out of your train, you have to walk between 2 and 5 minutes before you get to the principal thoroughfare of the underground station. I had never seen anything like this the first time I walked through there. It feels like the size of two football pitches with turnstiles, small shops, and concrete stairs leading down to the platforms. Above your head, signs are pointing to Metro lines and various exits or attractions. Two signs will often point in opposite directions for the same train.

What’s most amazing about this section of the station is the sheer mass of people who walk to and fro, all on different trajectories. You have to be constantly on guard for people crossing your path and everyone is in their own world, on their phone, charging through the mass and unaware of anyone else.

It made me think of the description of the streaming crowd of souls beside the Acheron River in Book 6 of Virgil’s Aeneid…

huc omnis turba ad ripas effusa ruebat - Here all the crowd streams, hurrying to the shores.

Go to Châtelet-Les Halles once, if you must, and then try to avoid it as best you can.

On that Friday night, as I finally walked out of the manta ray’s gaping mouth, I was resolved to never return. It took me another 10 minutes to locate the bar where I saw my friend waiting outside. It would have only been slightly longer to walk from my office, down Rue de Rivoli, past l’Hôtel de Ville and then cutting right, north, up towards the bar and buckets more enjoyable.