It was actually a bit of a toss up as to which photo to use for the thumbnail. This (obviously) the Eiffel Tower just before 10:00 p.m. when it does its hourly sparkly thing.
Today was our day to scale the heights of various Parisian structures. First, we went back to Notre Dame. Andy climbed to the top of the tower. Andy took a bunch of photos as best he could with the misty, overcast sky - but they are on his phone, not my iPad so I can't pop any into this blog.
After he came down, we went into the church and toured the back half of the cathedral that we somehow managed to not see the last time. Here's the photo that competed with the tower:
Yey, there it is Big Window #1.
But since we don't have a museum pass at the moment, we didn't go into the Treasury. We'll be buying another museum pass next week to cover the Rodin museum and Giverny; we will have free time on Wednesday and Friday - if either day is clear and sunny, we'll try Notre Dame again. We'll keep trying till we get it right!
After Notre Dame, we took the Metro to L'Arc d'Triomphe. We went down into the underground tunnel to cross under the jagunda and insane traffice circle around the arch. Without thinking too much, we bought two tickets. When we surfaced at the arch, we realized we only needed tickets if we were going to the top. I personally hadn't planned on it, because I had assumed it was stairs only.
Amazingly, there was an elevator! that took us to the floor with the chachke shop. There was still another flight of stairs up to the actual observation deck. That sure makes sense - make sure people can get to the gift store. Never mind about getting to the top.
Here's photo from the arch. The street on the right is the Champs Elysee:
Of course we had to have lunch on the Champs Elysee. As we started the hike to the meeting point for the Eiffel Tower tour, we absolutely had to do what everybody else was doing - stopping on the island in the middle of the Champs Elysee to get this photo:
The directions for the meeting spot for the tour was a bit confusing. It's good we left an hour for a 20 minute walk. We were supposed to meet on the steps of the Palaise Chaillot by the Tracadero metro stop. What "Steps of the Palaise Chaillot" means was open to interpretation. Fortunately, Andy thought to check another set of steps that might satisfy the description, and indeed that's where the meeting point was.
Here you go, the view from the summit of the tower:
This is a view of the Champe D'Mars. At the furthest end of the grassy area is L'Ecole Militaire - military school where Napoleon Bonaparte completed his two year program in one year as a teenager. Already an over-achiever.
We had hoped to have dinner at the Tower and stay till it was dark. Indeed the very upscale restaurant on the 1st floor had no problem seating us, even though we were dressed in jeans. The food was marvelous (for those prices, it had better be!). I had a filet of lamb and for dessert - well the name had many words in it and three of them were "chocolat".
After dinner we sat on a bench on the 1st floor and waited for dark.
This is a view of the Palais Chaillot at night from the 1st floor of the Tower.
We ended up staying after 10:00 in order to catch the tower do its sparkly thing. And we have come full circle to the photo at the top.
Tomorrow: Not sure. A free day. Maybe find a shopping street, may tour the opera house.
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