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Published: September 14th 2006
First sightings of the Eiffel Tower
As we came into view of the Eiffel Tower, this is what we saw...Our agenda for Thursday was all set and we were prepared for an early one.
Except our alarm didn’t like the idea of having to wake up at 5am so it slept in… and as a result so did we.
We eventually woke up at 11:20, over 7 hours later than scheduled.
The reason we wanted to wake up so early was so we could go and watch the sunrise over the Eiffel Tower and get some good photos before the tourists rolled in by the bus load. But with that idea scrapped out the window, we awoke to daylight at 11:20 and hurried to get ready in order to check-out on time.
Getting ready in record time and packing our bags, we were ready to leave the hotel at 12:05. We kept our luggage at the hotel until it was time to depart the city of love, and began our adventures for the day.
From the hotel we walked to Gare du Nord (the closest train station to our hotel), stopping on the way at a bakery for brekkie. You can’t go to Paris and not have croissants for breakfast. So Roger bought some pastry doughnut thingy
Danni leaning on the Eiffel Tower
It's a good resting point for the weary traveller. and a croissant and I got this sweet cake thing. And we can definitely give Parisian bakeries two thumbs up… they were delicious.
Once we found which train we needed, we caught one to Ecole Militaire, on which we had the pleasure of another busker…
A lady began singing, and she didn’t have the greatest voice, as if she was listening to music out of headphones and singing along. Everyone on the train just sat there, I mean; what else could we do… we couldn’t get off. So we sat and listened and when she decided she had had enough she got up and requested money from the other passengers, as if she was doing us a service. Now fair enough if she was on the side of the street and busking and if you liked her singing you could drop her a penny or two. But we were on the train, on our way to somewhere and she just starts singing… we didn’t ask her to, and then she expects money because we heard her. Now don’t get me wrong… if I hear or see a good busker I’ll show them I appreciation their talent, but to walk
It's not that big!
well actually you'd be surprised. around asking for money… hmmm, let’s just say ‘it’s a Paris thing’. So the singing lady hopped off and waited for her next train to sing on and we continued on our train to the stop we needed.
Eventually, after 10 or 15 minutes it was our turn to hop off the train. We jumped off and found our way out of the subway and onto the road we needed. We walked for a block or so in the direction of the Eiffel Tower, then we turned the corner and low and behold, there she stood, all 300 metres of steel and concrete. It was a magnificent sight. I wasn’t expecting to see such a tall structure, I mean I knew it was big… but it really was BIG! We stood at the edge of the Champ Mars gardens looking at the Eiffel Tower and slowly made our way closer, gasping at the enormity of the thing. We did as tourists do and tried to take those photos where your holding the tower or leaning on it… trying to get those optical illusions just right. Then we decided it was time to conquer this tourist magnet. We approached the
As happy as can be...
we were over the moon to be in Paris and enjoying all the sites in the city of love! bottom of the tower looking up and still baffled by its sheer size, and headed for the beginning of the stairs. In order to reach the first observation deck we climbed about 300 steps, which I thought was bad enough. And the view from there was magnificent. Then just when I thought I could relax we started the second hike to reach the second observation deck. In total we climbed 668 steps, with the last few becoming a real struggle for me.
The second observation deck was only halfway up the tower, but from here you could see all of Paris, and it was just amazing. The entire built up area of the city is relatively flat and there aren’t a lot of high rise buildings as you might imagine. There are a few small hubs that are denser and built up, but these tend to be on the outskirts of the city. And because of this the Eiffel Tower looks so tall as it towers over everything close by.
We stayed up on the observation deck for some time to enjoy the scenery and take some photos and movies (be sure to watch the movie clips in this
blog ) before we started the decent back to the ground. So after 668 stairs our feet were back on soil and we said farewell to the Eiffel Tower.
From here we crossed the River Seine towards Palace de Charlotte to see the tower from the other side. Then we started our trek to the Arc d’Triumphe, about 20 minutes away by foot. We started walking there at about 3pm and stoped at a little patisserie on the way to buy some afternoon tea. A quick pit stop to buy some pastries and get our fix of coca cola and we were off.
We came to the roundabout that houses the Arc d’Triumphe and immediately noticed the chaotic traffic and crazy drivers. I think only a true Parisian could get around this thing alive, that’s not to say they wouldn’t have a bingle, about 60%!o(MISSING)f the cars we saw in Paris had some sort of injury incurred to their quarter panels. There are no lanes marked, no street signs (oh don’t get me started on street signs) and no traffic lights. There is, however, a guy who sits at the edge of
There she stands
The Eiffel Tower, originally built for a temporary trade fair exhibition is still standing tall and proud today over 100 years later. the roundabout in a truck waiting in case there is an accident. So the way to tackle this mammoth road hazard (from watching motorists) is to enter it at approx 60km/h (no slower - or others will push in) and when you eventually find the one of twelve streets that radiate out from it that you want; you make a sudden sharp right and everyone (well nearly) will stop for you and let you drive off into the sunset in front of them. But this takes extreme skill and precision, a less experienced driver may find him or herself doing 2 or 3 loops to work out where they want to go then 1 more to attempt to exit. This roundabout is so chaotic that it is the only section of road in Paris where your car is not insured. You can drive anywhere in Paris and have an accident and you should be right, but attempt the Place Charles-de-Gaulle roundabout and have a bingle: money’s commin’ out of your pocket pal!
So in being mesmerized by the traffic, and watching it for some time we finally found the tunnel that safely takes pedestrians to the middle of the
Lean on me...
'when your not strong'... or just tired. roundabout. We walked down and under and remerged outside beside the Arc d’Triumphe. Here we looked around and sat for a while to enjoy our afternoon tea. There is an observation deck at the top of the arch, but we decided that 5 euros per person to walk up some stairs was a bit steep and opted for the ground level view. The arch is lovely and all, but it didn’t draw our attention for too long as we had places still to cross off our list. So we journeyed through the tunnel again and safely made it to the beginning of Avenue des Champs-Elysees. The avenue that houses some of the most famous named shops such as Louis Vuitton. This avenue is yet another traffic hazard, but this time for pedestrians. You can either play it safe and choose one side of the street and walk along it till the end, or you can zig-zag your way down to see the sights on both sides. Now crossing at zebra crossings is the wisest idea, but remember to look before you step out, coz these nice white lines on the road mean nothing to a Parisian travelling at 60km/h. They
Look up there...
it's quite a way up to the top... 300 metres in fact! will even cross when the light is red, so be ware. Crossing eight lanes of traffic in peak hour is one of the bravest things you’ll do in Paris.
So we started down the avenue looking at all the up market stores until we came across Louis Vuitton and I had to go in. So at the zebra crossing we waited, looked left and right and left again (still thinking like an Aussie) then we crossed. It was about 4pm and LV was very busy, and I’m guessing they were making a pretty penny too. There were lots of customers carrying LV shopping bags with very expensive little handbags inside. So I looked and dreamed and soon snapped back to reality and we continued on our way down the avenue, where we came across a Quicksilver store. We had to go in of course… and we came out with a bag each. We found Quicksilver and Roxy t-shirts that had Paris printed on them in true surf style and we had to buy them - they are our Paris souvenirs.
So with our shopping compulsion over we continued further down the avenue finally walking past all the fancy
shops and making our way to the Louvre - well at least the Louvre Gardens. We stoped to admire the Obelisk for a moment then turned the corner and headed towards the Madeleine. We were there for a while admiring the massive columns and the sheer size of the whole building.
With the day ending quickly and our feet becoming very tired we didn’t stay there very long before we moved onto the last landmark on our list: Sacre Coeur.
From La Madeleine we caught the train to the nearest station to conserve the little energy we had left, then used it all to hike up the hill to the church. Once we finally made it to the top, which by that time of the day felt like forever, the view was stunning. We were able to look back out onto the Paris skyline. We stood taking in the view for a while before turning around to admire Sacre Coeur behind us. We looked at this massive church from the bottom of the last section of stairs before walking up and taking a look inside. We sat for a moment and watched real life nuns singing in a choir
as a service was just about to begin. We left just before the service and enjoyed the weather outside for a few minutes before heading back into town.
It was now 5:45 and we needed to walk back to the hotel to collect our baggage and head to the train station. So we weaved our way through the small streets down the hill back to the hotel and picked up our belongings. We then made our way to the train station stopping on the way at a small supermarket to buy tomorrows snacks and at that great bakery to buy some last minute croissants for tomorrow’s brekkie. So with our bags, snacks and brekkie, oh and dinner (chicken and chips) in hand we marched off to the station, arriving there at 7:10 leaving us just enough time to write our postcards to family and friends and eat some dinner.
Our train was scheduled to leave at 8:45pm and we managed to write all our postcards but one in time. We ran for the train, quickly found our seats and wrote the last postcard swiftly. We then managed to ask some family of one of the passengers who were
The view from the top
well not exactly the top... the first of three levels actually. saying goodbye on the platform if they could post it for us. So the postcard was passed out of the window as the train started rolling off and went on its own adventure.
So 8:47 and we were settled on the train, heading to Berlin for stage 2 of our adventures.
We were once again in a six seat compartment on the train, with a 12 hour ride ahead of us. And this time we had the pleasure of 4 other guests, making it a full cabin. The outlook for this journey didn’t look comfortable. Not only did we have to sleep sitting up, but it was a warm night and the heater in our compartment was broken: it was stuck on the ‘produce heat’ setting. So we were crammed into this small room with the heater pumping out warm air and 6 tired people trying to fall to sleep.
By about 10:45 the ticket inspector had come through and checked all our tickets and went on his way, we again tried to get some sleep, but with no success. Then at about 12:30 Roger went for a walk and found an empty cabin, so we migrated, we
Those are people...
The view down from the second level (approx halfway up the tower). took our bags and moved further down carriage. We had the whole 6 seats to ourselves, meaning we could lie across 3 each and the best bit: the heater wasn’t broken. So from 12:30 till about 6:30am we managed to sleep pretty well. It was then at approx 6:30am the train came to a sudden halt, waking me up and started reversing. I was trying to figure out why we suddenly stoped and started going backwards so I was fully awake from then on looking out the window. But somehow going in this ‘backward’ direction the rest of the way we managed to get to Berlin. Meanwhile Roger continued to sleep all the way to Berlin.
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