1. Cover for Underground Paris: An Upside Down Guide to the Hidden City, published by Herb Lester Associates. Illustration in red, black, cream and teal shows an ornate arched underground scene inside a scalloped oval border, with classical columns, a ladder descending into darkness, checkerboard flooring, and a row of skulls and crossed bones near the base.
  2. Interior spread from Underground Paris, showing numbered guide entries including the Paris Catacombs, Réservoir de Montsouris, the Panthéon crypt and Cluny-La Sorbonne station, illustrated in the guide's red, black and cream style, shown layered with the guide's cover.
  3. Interior spread from Underground Paris, showing further numbered guide entries including Le Louxor cinema, Musée des Égouts and Traces de la Petite Ceinture, illustrated in the guide's red, black and cream style.

Underground Paris

£8.00

In this upside-down guide to Paris, we uncover the passages, cellars and forgotten spaces beneath the Paris streets. It leads readers through the vast catacombs holding the remains of six million Parisians, into wartime bunkers and vaulted wine cellars, and along abandoned métro stations. 

Alongside celebrated sites such as the ossuary at Denfert-Rochereau and the sewers below Pont de l'Alma are easily missed details such as fragments of a medieval wall preserved in a car park, a bank vault door shipped from Ohio and set beneath the Champs-Élysées.

With clear descriptions and visiting details, this guide reveals a city beneath the city, where history, architecture and invention come together – an ideal companion for curious travellers who want to see Paris the other way up.

The guide comes in a beautifully designed, fold-out format with 10 A5 panels, litho-printed on sturdy 300gsm stock.

Written by Hugh Tucker
Design and illustration by Gabe Schneider / Sight Study