Up the Eiffel Tower and All Around the Town

Here we are sitting on the Eurostar High Speed Train in the Paris station, waiting to head to London via the Chunnel. I am taking this opportunity to catch up in my writing for yesterday’s adventures.

Another early start to the day, which was primarily due to the reservation our group had to go up the Eiffel Tower (which was a good thing when we saw the line up at the base of the Tower - I bet it took some those people a couple hours to get up the tower). We had a little Parisian woman as a local guide, and ironically she said many of the same things Elzo said the evening before, and we saw many of the same buildings and monuments, but things looked different in the morning light and there was so much to take in it wasn’t a bad thing at all to have some repetition.

The most somber part of the tour was driving through the tunnel where Princess Diana was killed in the car accident 13 years ago. Both Elzo and the Parisian guide pointed this place out. It was the Parisian guide who noted that the car crashed into the 13th pillar in the tunnel, and Elzo noted that the tunnel was simple and straight and hard to imagine what could have caused the crash - especially the way people drive in Paris. The driving here is as crazy as Rome, and around the Arc de Triomphe, where 12 Avenues converge, its amazing that people get in and out of that huge traffic circle in one piece. Yet with all the crazy driving, the Europeans seem to manage just fine - and I never saw any evidence of vehicle accidents anywhere. We were glad for our bus driver Massimo who navigated his way around these cities without getting flustered, or losing his cool - he always seemed in complete control. We were sad to say “au revoir” to him today as he is not coming with us to London (there we will have a local driver for the remainder of the tour).

Paris is a beautiful city, with lots of incredible monuments, buildings and bridges. This one bridge, recently restored, was stunning with its angels at each corner gilded with gold leaf. There was also a new museum that had living walls, plants were literally growing out of the walls - very interesting. Paris has 109 museums, including the largest in the world, the Louvre. We saw the Louvre from the outside, but it would take days to go through the museum which has 6 kilometres of hallways, and that’s just on one level! You could tell that it is near the end of the school year because each of these places had groups of school children on field trips… imagine going to the Louvre, Versailles, or the Eiffel Tower as a school outing!

I thought we were going to be in trouble for going up the Eiffel Tower because the forecast was for rain. However the morning started sunny, and even though the clouds built up during the morning there was no actual rain while we were up the tower. Our group only went to the second level (due to time constraints) but actually that was just fine, we got a great view of Paris from that level - taking many pictures of course. It was a little windy and cold up there, but otherwise a positive outing. Can you believe that the Parisians did not like the Eiffel Tower at first, and wanted it dismantled. World War I saved the structure as it became useful as a radio tower. Now it is hard to imagine Paris without this iron masterpiece.

Following the Eiffel Tower we were brought to the Opera House and directed to Galleries LaFayette, a large department store, which had a cafeteria on the top floor which we could get lunch at. Beth and I went up to the top floor, grabbed some croissants and quiche and looked out at the Eiffel Tower in the distance which was now surrounded by a rain storm (we got down just in time). In some ways the Galleries LaFayette reminded me of the Bay department store in Calgary when I was young - which also had a cafeteria on the top floor, only this Paris store was much larger, much more upscale, and had very different items in its cafeteria.

After lunch we looked at the outside of the Opera House (or the Académie Nationale de Musique) - another majestic building with incredible ornamentation. Then we boarded the bus for Versailles, but that’s another post.