05-29 Beautiful Views from the Eiffel Tower

Guest blogger again today. Who else but Karen could convey to you how wonderful the Eiffel Tower is?

We leave our room late at 9:30 heading for the Eiffel Tower. Jessica, I'll take lots of pictures for you.

At the Eiffel Tower we encounter a line going diagonally through the center from the East Pillar to the street and down the street.

The fast elevator had been down a while. Pat hears in line that the line is three hours long. I walk to find the stairs line. Go back and get Pat and the stairs line is triple when I was just here a few minutes ago. And before we can reach the line a huge school group gets in.

We start up the 669 steps at 10:05am. Arriving at the 1st floor at 10:39. The views are amazing!!!

The River Seine, all the boats; I love active rivers. I can see the Champs Elysées and the Arc de Triomphe. Beautiful sunny day for pictures. Just enough fluffy white clouds to make gorgeous pictures.

Up to the second floor at 12:15. More pictures and the gift shop is small but WE look great.

Here is how long the line is now to take the stairs up when we are on the 2nd floor.

The line for the elevator from the ground floor to the top still winds from under the tower and out to the street. That's it there on the left side.

This is how wide the walking area is on the 2nd floor.

In line to take the elevator to the top. This is everyone who walked up the stairs.

Up at the top there is a small inside area. It's smaller than inside the Space Needle.

You can walk all the way around if you are inside the glass area or if you are outside in the weather. I'm 1,000 feet in the sky.!! The view is so good we take the same pictures we just took on the 2nd level.

I take several panorama shots; very COOL!!!

You can see the River Seine on the left and on the right!

There are also windows that you look in that show Eiffel's office at the top. There's Eiffel, Thomas Edison (and the phonograph he presented to Eiffel on his visit to the tower during the Exposition), and Eiffel's daughter Clair.

They also had a window, open briefly during our visit, that served Champagne in a glass that came to a point at the bottom so you couldn't set it down. It was called the Champagne Bar. You can also see the width of the outside walking area and how crowded it can get up here.

We arrive back on the second floor at 1:43 and have lunch. Quiche Lorraine and pizza, Coke and Pringles 1:53. We start down back down the 669 stairs at 2:30. At the base of the tower I bought a mini Eiffel Tower and a mini Arc de Triomphe

It's a sunny and warm so we head over to the Arc de Triomphe.

We locate the passageway under the traffic, pay for our ticket and find out the elevator to the top is OUT! So we walk up another 284 steps.

This traffic circle is ten, count them ten, lanes of traffic wide. What were they thinking ???? Makes me dizzy.

Wow more cool views. This time Mr Eiffel's Tower is in them. Cool.

The traffic is amazing going around this thing. From above we see and hear two units of soldiers march through the intersection at 6:30 to place flowers on the tomb of the unknown soldier. A ceremony done every night.

Back down on the ground we head down the Champs Élysées. We see the car tunnel that Princess Diana died in.

Food tonight is McDs fish sandwich, fries, MnM Blizzard and nuts & pecan Blizzard .

Then we took the 8:22 subway to Chatelet, one stop past the Louvre, and walk across the island, where the Notre Dame Cathedral sits, to our apartment in the Latin Quarter at 8:45pm. Yes my feet hurt. I'm beat.

I took 918 pictures today; a fine total considering where we've been, The Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triumphe. Hey we're in Paris!!!