Day 42 -- Paris

Wednesday, 18 October 2023

Well, I'm in Paris. So I should do Paris things.

I walked the five miles to the Eiffel Tower. When Google told me to turn onto Rue Legendre, it pronounced it as leg-end-ray. But I knew the right pronunciation, thanks to some great high school math teachers.

A view down Rue Legendre on the way to the Eiffel Tower

My first sighting of the Arc de Triomphe

My first sighting of the Eiffel Tower

Given how tall it is, I figured I'd see the Eiffel Tower over the tops of buildings well before I got there. But I hadn't counted on how narrow the streets were. There's not a lot of clear line of sight to anything beyond the buildings on either side. It wasn't until the buildings opened up on the edge of the Seine that I saw the tower.

Barge traffic on the Seine

I didn't have a ticket for the Eiffel Tower, so I had to wait in the "longer" line to get through security. It still only took about five minutes. I had figured that a weekday in late October wouldn't be too crowded, so I took my chances with just buying a ticket at the tower. It turned out well, because there were only about five people in line ahead of me. I bought a ticket to take the stairs to the first two levels, and then the elevator from there to the top. (They don't have an option to take the stairs all the way to the top.)

The beginning of the stairs

The Champ de Mars from the first level

The Seine from the first level

Looking back to the ground

The Trocadero Gardens and the skyscrapers of the La Défense district in the background 

Looking back down to where I started

I stopped on the first level to take some photos and to read some displays. They had a little café, so I figured eating a croque monsieur part way up the Eiffel Tower seemed like the right thing do to. (It was not the best croque monsieur I've had.) I then continued on the stairs to the second level.

The croque monsieur in question

The Seine from the second level

The Arc de Triomphe from the second level. Accidental impressionism?

There was about a ten-minute wait for the elevator to the top. From the ground to the first and second levels, the elevator is on a slanted track. But from here on up, it's a vertical shaft. It was rainy and windy at the top, so I didn't get many photos.

Eiffel selfie (almost an anagram)

The "top" that guests can get to isn't quite at the top. This is a view up through the antenna equipment and other stuff that is above the observation platform

Then it was back down the elevator to the second level, and the stairs back to the ground. 

A view up through the center

Looking back while walking away

Cut off the top

Cut off myself

Looking back from halfway down the Champ de Mars

 Before today, I would have said the Eiffel Tower was black. It's a yellowish-brown now, but it's been about a dozen different colors through the years

Then I headed to the Arc de Triomphe because it is pretty close. And the rain picked up. 

Hard to get a good shot in the rain

The Arc de Triomphe

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the base of the Arc de Triomphe

I was going to keep walking and see the Louvre (just the outside) and Notre Dame Cathedral while I was in the area before heading back to the hotel. But the rain made the sidewalks very slippery. It wasn't the wet leaves. It's that the sidewalks are made of smooth stone. Anywhere I could find concrete or asphalt was fine, but most of that part of Paris uses stone. I slipped for the fourth time just after leaving the Arc de Triomphe -- and two of those ended up with me on the ground -- so I bailed out on the idea of more walking. I found the nearest subway station and took the subway to near the hotel for dinner at Big Fernand.

I wonder if the put their website address on their trays in response to all the food photos on social media

Then I walked back to the hotel -- the area around Saint Ouen is mostly concrete and asphalt, not so much stone, so I had no slipping problems -- and wrapped up the day. (Oh, I completed 13 more streets in Saint Ouen today. And a handful in Paris, but Paris has 5600+ streets so I won't be completing Paris any time soon.)

...doug