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Published: August 6th 2007
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I have always harboured a secret, preposterously childish, romantic fantasy. In fact, the kiss at the top of the Eiffel Tower has long held more allure for me than any ribbon bound box of roses, giant fluffy bear or even white wedding extravaganza. Loathe to admit it to even my closest friends and family, I have kept a silent romantic vigil that burned fiercer and fiercer, the closer we came to France. With heart pounding, I headed for the tower at the first available opportunity.
There were two lines of approximately 500 people queuing for tickets to the tower. They were all clearly hot and tired and had been standing there for some hours. Many had small children whining around their ankles. The entire area under the tower was filled with other camera wielding tourists craning their necks skywards. Amidst the crowds, mobs of black men jangled bundles of miniature metal towers and waved plastic glow in the dark towers at anyone who made eye contact. A large group of what appeared to be drunken footballers wearing dinnersuits sang a victory song. Machine-gun wielding guards surveyed the scene with poker-faces.
I had travelled half way around the world for
this moment. Undaunted, I pressed on.
The line moved quicker than expected, and in the hour or so it took to reach the ticket office, Richard and I grew so accustomed to the faces of those around us that we felt we had almost attained the status of old friends. The relative intimacy of twenty people packed into a small lift on the way up afforded us a moment or two to contemplate the romance of this auspicious occasion. I leaned in close and Richard whispered lovingly in my ear, "I wonder where all the sewer pipes are?"
"Pardon?"
"The sewer pipes. They have a restaurant up there. They must have toilets. And I can't see any pipes leading down to the ground. You'd think you'd be able to see them, wouldn't you?"
"Hmmmm."
At the second level of the tower, we had to line up yet again for the lift. We only waited thirty minutes or so in the line before we shuffled aboard for our final date with destiny. The doors opened and we were at the top of the tower. All alone with about 200 others (mostly couples), some managed to ignore the absurdity of
Van Gough surprised us with colour
and wouldn't it look perfect in our living room? the occasion and lunge forward with lips puckered. I tried. Richard was valient in his efforts to ensure the realisation of my romantic vision, but somehow, the moment on the tower drew breath a final time and expired quietly in the wind.
With that out of the way, we enjoyed the rest of our time on Mr Eiffel's famous flagpole. We walked down from the second floor and spent a lot of time goofing off in the little cinema and reading all the inscriptions they have posted around the walkways. The lights of the tower came on at 10pm, just as the sun was setting, and we began to really appreciate the beauty of the experience.
In fact, Paris was like that in many ways. The romantic illusion gets in the way of enjoying what is really there - plenty of tourist traps, the river Seine, the pretty girls, long queues to galleries, old buildings galore and quaint lamp-posts everywhere. We enjoyed the history and the art, but overdosed on it a little. Every now and then, we caught a glimpse of what probably made Paris the tourist mecca that it is today. But it was only a
Halt. You are entering the Empire of Death
The remains of over 6 million Parisiennes were stored in a disused quarry under the city when the cemetries became overcrowded. Now tourists can creep through a maze of underground skeleton tunnels. glimpse before we bent down to check for dog poo or lament the rudeness of the metro ticket-girl who screamed at us when we tried to get help.
The most interesting part of Paris seemed to have died a long time ago. We were truly overwhelmed by the beauty of some of the art in the Musee d'Orsay - Van Gough was a particular favourite. The gardens of the Palace of Versailles were spectacular and we saw the bed from which Louis XVI rose to address the clamouring Parisiennnes in the courtyard just prior to the revolution. The artistic quarter of Montmarte seems only inhabited by tourists nowadays and the Notre Dame Cathedral looks more like a theme park than a religious institution. The Catacombs were eerily thrilling - walking through walls of human remains is not something one gets to do every day. The underground passages were filled with marble plaques of beautifully poetic reflections on death, that you could read as you made your way through the half-lit skeletal walls. It seemed almost like a metaphor of Paris - the beauty of a past that is echoed only faintly in the present.
We are glad we
Revolutionary Carp of Versailles
"I said, Louis, you're going too far this time, but would he listen?" came. We can tick it off the list of dreams achieved. Now we're looking forward to finding a nice country village in Northern England. Tomorrow we fly to Manchester and then drive out into the countryside. We don't know where we will go, but we hope there is nobody else there.
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Cheryl
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Paris doesn't do it for me
As I have commented in a previous blog, I've never really been interested in Paris. I've never really seen the romantic side to the city that everyone goes on about. The artworks however would be something that may lure me there. I think it would be absolutely thrilling to see the works of the masters. Also the Catacombs would be fascinating. No wonder you didn't really experience the romance of the kiss on the Eiffel Tower when Richard was thinking about poo pipes. Trust a male to think about engineering at a time like that.