Day Seventeen- 30,000 steps

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Had a massive walking day today, although we again started off late. Because of a late night last night and because we’d only planned to do two things today we didn’t set an alarm, and we thought our body clocks would wake us at about 9/9:30. Plot twist- I woke up at 10:30 and almost shrieked the apartment block and all its neighbours down.

We had a quick breakfast (vegan yogurt- which we accidentally bought because we didn’t know the word “végétalian” on the pack meant vegan and not vegetarian- with granola) and eventually made it out at 11:50am. We walked down to the Louvre and waited in line for about an hour, until finally making it in to the most massive and crowded museum I’ve ever been in.

The Louvre, whilst super stuffy and total tourist mania, is so gorgeous and ginormous that once again I was in complete awe. We headed first to an exhibition on Delacroix, who I had no idea had created so many pieces of art. It’s incredible that in his life he had the time to create as many paintings as he did, let alone make them good.
After Delacroix we decided to make our way slowly to the Mona Lisa, so we could see “the main one” and also take in a lot on the way.
The Mona Lisa. This might be a bit controversial, but I’m not too sure what all the fuss is about. Now before I receive a bunch of hate comments, let me just clarify that I agree it’s a beautiful painting and very representative of its time. However, there are so many paintings I find more exquisite than this one, and I’m just not sure why she is such a monumental image. If anyone can tell me why and change my mind, please go ahead, I’m very open to have my opinion changed!

We spent two hours wandering around the Louvre perusing, and then another hour trying to figure out how to get out. We got Lost in the Louvre! (I’d trademark that but it’s probably been done before).

We went straight from the Louvre to the Eiffel Tower, stopping at a restaurant on the way for lunch (even though it was 4pm. That seems to be the standard here). I had a mushroom risotto and a glass of rosé. Trudi had a cheeseburger. It was a very long walk.

Along the way we kept catching glimpses of the Tower and with each glimpse we got more and more excited. We finally got there, went through security, and spent a good 10 minutes trying to figure out which of the four lines stemming from each leg of the tower was the one for “stairs plus lift”. We eventually found it, and stood in line for just under an hour. We chose to walk up to the second floor and then get a lift to the top, which is the most amount of walking you can do (we’ve had a lot of junk food this holiday...).

Climbing the Eiffel Tower was an awesome experience. It was hard for unfit people like us but totally worth it, although the higher you go the more jelly-like your legs begin to feel. Trudi’s non-intentionally humorous comments kept me going- “oh my god, will they tell their children to stop running on the stairs?? They’re shaking it. I don’t like it. It’s not a hotel, people.”
Even at the first floor I felt uneasy looking down at the people below.
The second floor was even worse, and I didn’t think we could possibly get any higher. But no, we definitely could.
I was not aware that the lift has glass walls. This was a very scary realisation. I looked out at the city maybe once on the entire minute and a half journey upwards, and spent the rest of the time with my eyes closed and palms sweating. As soon as the lift opened I threw myself out and happily looked at the view through the clear glass inside the top of the Eiffel Tower.
Not surprisingly, the view was incredible. Paris is a massive city and they’ve still managed to make every bit of the surface beautiful. We took quite a few pictures and eventually freaked out and took the lift back down to the second level.
This time in the lift I did look out and I even filmed it to add it into a video I’m going to make when I get home (a bit like my ski trip video for those that saw it).

We spent a good two or three hours at the tower, and by the time we made it out it was 8:15pm. We wanted to see the Eiffel Tower light up, and the website said that would happen at sundown. So we decided to go grab some food and sit on the grass in front of the tower while we waited.

We thought it would be oh-so-Parisien if we got some pastries to eat whilst looking at the tower, so these ended up being our dinner. We walked for a while to find a pâtisserie that was still open, grabbed 5 of their best looking products, and made the trek back to the tower. We had a lemon meringue tart, a pear tart, an almond tart, a white choc coconut tart, and a pain au chocolat, which we cut in half with the gold cardboard that came underneath them.

We ate these and played cards on the grass for two hours, constantly shaking our heads and saying “no thanks” to the many many people selling Eiffel Tower key rings and “beer beer wine champagne beer?”. The lights came on slowly and changed colours from time to time, then at 11pm it started sparkling!! This is what we’d waited for. It was beautiful!

We watched it for a minute then were ready to go home- we had an hour’s walk ahead of us and it was completely dark by this point.

We got home at midnight, which is why I’m now again behind on the blog. We ended up doing 30,000 steps for the whole day. Overall it was an amazing second day in Paris!

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