Day 6- Paris

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We had to wake up early to have breakfast, because Dad had planned a long day of sightseeing. We went down and had breakfast again, and again it was croissants and baggetes. Dad got himself a boiled egg and a piece of French Toast extra, but I chose not to, instead going upstairs to have a shower and get changed. It was a hot day in Paris, because the Paris summer Sun is hotter than the English summer sun. We went downstairs and towards the train station, where we mixed into the peak hour commute and made our way to Trocadero, the station near the Eiffel Tour. We had been there the previous night after the football crowd had been through, leaving all of the rubbish. Less than 8 hours later, it was almost all cleaned, with a couple of workers picking up the last of the rubbish. We thought that if they show the matches every night, they would have to clean it every morning.

We arrived at the Eiffel Tower at 8:50, and joined the line for the stairs. The tower hadn't opened yet, and there were already people lining up for the lift, but none for the stairs, so we made the line for the stairs. There was a sign that said that from where we were there would be a thirty minute wait until you reached the tower, but for us it was only 15 minutes. The lady walked outside, and she checked our bags, and we ran towards the entrance, where we bought tickets, our bags were x-rayed and passed our tickets through the machine and we were the first visitors to step onto the tower for the day.

It was a long climb upstairs, but we enjoyed it. We marvelled at the view as we got higher and higher, and looked at the construction of the tower, and how the rivets and beams were held together. When we did reach the first floor, we emerged and were the first visitors there, the lifts hadn't started yet. Around us there were people waiting patiently behind the counters at the cafes, restraunts and gift shops, ready for the crowd of people to come in like they came in on every other day. We sat down at the cafe, and ordered a croissant each, and we sat and ate them on the Eiffel Tower, looking around at the view and taking in everything that we could see.

Slowly, more people climbed the stairs and eventually, the lifts started and people came out of those as well. We walked around the edge and had a look at the information boards, showing what, when, where, how, why and who built the Eiffel Tower. Then we walked around again and had a look outside down onto all of the surrounding buildings and gardens. As the crowd got greater, we decided to climb the stairs to the next level. These stairs were better than the first set, as we were higher and higher and got even better views of the ground beneath us. Some of the information boards had been graffied out, and there wasn't much to read, but we did find that the Worlds Oldest Female Elephant had been to the first floor of the tower. We reached the second floor and again, walked around the edge looking out at the views. There were less shops and more people on the second floor, which was 150 metres above the ground (as compared to 75 for the first floor). We had some amazing views of the Seine and all of the boats that were parked there and the Gardens that surround the tower.

Dad and I then decided to go up the lift to the very top, before there are too many people there, and we could come back down to the second floor later on. So we boarded the lift after a long, but fast moving queue, and waited to reach the top. The lift took a while, but it does if it has to go up 150 metres. We were slowly going up and up and everything else was getting smaller. We could see the staircases and gantries that were used to go to the top, and we were glad that the lift was the only way. When we got there, we emerged into a circular, glass walled, viewing area, but it was quite empty because everyone was making their way up to the very top, which was up a small flight of stairs. We came out and could see for miles, everything that we had and hadn't seen before. We could see out to the Arc de Triomphe, and Notre Dame, then the Champs Elysees to the Lourve, and all the way along the Seine with all of the bridges linking over. Everyone there was taking photos, so we did the same. We took several photos for other people, and they did the same for us. It was an amazing thrill to stand at the top of the Tower, and look out onto the ground below.

We probably stayed up there for half an hour to 45 minutes at least, taking in every last view and looking at every last building, taking as many photos as we could. Once we had decided that we had seen everything, which meant seeing everything, we made our way back downstairs to the lift. Back on the second floor again, we looked out but the view just wasn't the same as at the top. So we walked back down the stairs, taking as long as we could just to spend more time in the tower, and back onto the first floor, where we walked around for a little bit more, then slowly down onto the ground. It had been an amazing experience, and as we walked away, still looking at the tower, it was hard to phathom the thought: "I was up there an hour ago". We had spent two hours up the tower, and already, the queues for the lift and stairs were getting out of hand. Thats why we would reckommend going to the Eiffel Tour the first thing in the morning, so you can see the views without alot of other people in the way.

From the Eiffel Tour we walked along the edge of the Seine a bit to a museum of the Paris Sewers. Entry was free for us with our Paris Musuem Pass, so we walked down and into the Sewers. There were 9 small galleries, each in an order which you walk through. The first 2 were full of information boards written in French so we skipped over them. The third was similar, but had some English so we stayed there for a while reading about the history of the sewers in Paris. Then it got interesting. We walked through a small tunnel and when we came out, we could hear rushing water, but it wasnt drinking water, it was sewer water. We looked down into the water, and the first thing that Dad pointed out was a floating condom that was going down the drain. Because the french flushed out their streets with water regularly, there were alot of cigarettes floating as well as leaves and other random stuff. We walked through, with our noses smelling a foul smell from the water, and discovered the measures that were used to clean the sewers. From there there were more tunnels and information boards and displays, written in English as well as French, that were really interesting and we can definitely say we learned alot from the Paris Sewers.

We made our way out and to the restroom, where it was recommended that we wash our hands. We passed a group of young schoolchildren and thought, "What an Excursion! Go to see the Sewers!" We passed through the gift shop, but there wasn't much for sale other than a couple of soft toy rats and books about the sewage system. We decided that there wouldn't be much to sell in a gift shop about the sewers.

We found our way to a metro station, to make three one station trips on three separate lines, the first being an RER line that normally services the suburbs but runs through the city. We had some difficulties with the ticket machine, but when we did finally board, we found that it was a double decker train, like the ones in Sydney. We went our 1 stop and got out and found a small shop where we bought a baggete and a can of apple juice and a sprite for lunch. We took that on the next two trains which lead us to the outside of the Opera de Paris Garnier. The next stop on Dads itenerany was not the Opera de Paris Garnier but a small place called Paris Story. We found some steps and ate our lunch and watched a Union Rally, before going into the Paris Story. There we talked to a man who seemed to ahve a deep interest in the history of palace, and he told us that along the Champs Elysees there was infact two Arc de Triomphes, the big one and there was also one outside the Lourve. Then he also told us that there is three statures of Liberty, one in New York, and two in Paris.

At 1, we were let into the Paris Story Cinema, with a small group of Americans and Canadians and eastern europeans. There weren't too many of us. The show was a description about the history of Paris explaining why some of the landmarks had been built, when, where and how, and how Paris has evolved as a city and community. There were few moving pictures, it was mostly a slide show, but the commentary and music, which were in 16 different languages was very interesting. The show lasted for about 45 minutes.

Leaving the cinema, we made our way across to the Opera de Paris Garnier. Most of the vistors spend at least an hour there on a guided tour, but because we had a Paris Museum Pass, we were allowed into the theatre for a quick look, not wanting to spend too much time there because we had plenty of other things to see that day as well. Inside, there were wide and grand marble staircases with massive stone pillars with beautifully painted ceilings, and massive mirrors on the walls of the room. Inside the theatre itself was several rows of boxes, with the stalls down the bottom. Everything was red. We could safely say that the Festival Theatre in Adelaide was bigger and had better acoustics, but this won on sheer grandness.

We left the Opera de Paris Garnier and made our way to the metro station, where we found a group of buskers, mostly playing strings, with deep voices playing Ukranien and Russian Music. Like the wind pipe band of the day before, they were very proffesional and the way it sounded in the tunnels in the metro station was really good and nice to listen too. Dad bought a CD from them as we listened to them taking in every note. It was really enjoyable.

Our metro train took us to the Grande Arche de La Defense. This was a massive glass and stone cube arch that was built 21 years ago in the more mordernised part of Paris. Unlike what we had seen previously, with old buildings that were hundreds of years old, and small thin streets that weren't made to handle traffic, this section was more American with tall office buildings and funny-shaped department stores. We walked up the steps to the Grande Arche de La Defense, and found that, despite the many people sitting on the steps looking back towards the Arc de Triomphe (the big one, not the one by the Lourve), the lifts clearly had not been used for a while, and there were signs saying CLOSED. We asked a lady if it was closed and she confirmed yes, but she wouldn't explain why. So we left, and with great views of the Arc de Triomphe, we walked back down the Eslanade to the next train station. I was dissapointed by the office buildings and wanted to get back to Old Paris as soon as possible.

The train took us back further into Paris, to the world famous Lourve. It was nearing the end of the day, but because it was a Wednesday, it stayed open until 9.30, so we went in. We found the glass pyramid that sits in the middle of the courtyard infront of the Lourve, and the three smaller ones around it. We made our way down the escalators in the middle of the big pyramid and into the galleries, and after a bag check we walked into the most famous art gallery in the world. We followed the crowds and the signs that were all going to see the Mona Lisa, and on the way, saw some amazing French and Italian art, alot of which was biblically based. We walked through several galleries, looking at paintings that were famous or big, and admiring them and picking up little details about them. Then we walked into one of the main hallways and we saw it covered floor to roof in paintings. We walked through, still admiring them, then, in one of the galleries to our right, we saw a crowd of people, so we walked in and saw our first glimpse of the most famous painting in the world.

The Mona Lisa.

This was when we discovered the advantages of being tall. We could see over alot of peoples heads and raise our arms higher than them to get photos. We took several, with us in them and with other people taking photos of her, and by herself as well. We spent at least 15 minutes in there looking at one painting on a wall. Once we had had enough, we made our way through some galleries of painting about the French Revolution, and Napoleon. We probably could have spent alot longer in there, nearly a whole day if we had wanted to, but we had been very busy in the last week and were tired, so we made our way downstairs to the galleries full of sculptures. We made our way through them and then got our first glimpse of the most famous sculpture in the world.

Venus de Milo.

We quickly found why she was so famous. There was so much controversy about it, because her arms are missing, they don't know exactly who she is, which greek god it is. We stayed there for a while, with our camera on very low charge, whipping it on and taking a photo really quickly before turning it off again, not worrying how it looked. We took several there and admired the sculpture, knowing that she was the most famous in the world.

After a quick look in some more galleries, we left the Lourve and made our way towards the metro station. Dad was sure he knew where it was, and he was following the map, yet, he couldn't find it and we were lost, until we asked for directions, and found that we had gone too far, but found a different station and headed of again. It was to our last stop of the day because it was nearing 6 o'clock and we were getting tired after a very long two days. Dad wanted to see the outside of the Pompidou Centre, which was famous for all of the insides such as escelators and ventilation shafts being on the outside. When we reached there, however, we were quite dissapointed. It was too modern, too out of place and too unlike its surroundings which were old Parisian buildings. Some things mix in well with the old stuff, others don't. this was one of them. We didn't go and see the art inside because we had seen it before in the Modern Tate in London, and we prefered old art like in the Lourve anyway. So we caught a metro back to our hotel. I went down to Maccas to use the wifi there, and Dad went for a short walk. I got back before Dad and went straight to sleep and he says he came in shortly after and went to sleep as well.

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Comments

[Jenny]

Peppie la pew!
A sewer tour! - alongside high art!? - way above ground and underground in the same day! They have Mount Franklin water in Paris? is this ubiquitous coca cola co or a refiiled bottle from home? Shouldn't you be drinking Perrier? Today I restocked on milk for the 1st time since you left! - so what does that say about who drinks all the milk in our house! And well-done, Ben, on the A-grade report card. Athena said there's maths homework for the school hols, but I guess you can skip that. Seems like you're already doing geography, art, design, society and environment etc etc etc in the best university - real life!