August 22nd/23rd : Paris, France
Having arrived the previous night (late!!) and travelling by bus and taxi from Beauvais airport to the Parisian satellite suburb of Montreuil, we didn’t get to sleep until late.
Although our accommodation had a fair bit to do with that sleeplessness the following morning.
Allow me to elaborate. Unfortunately for us, the hotel was situated in a very rough and poor area of Paris, just outside the ring road. About 15-20 minutes via the Metro from the central areas.
The hotel was fine in terms of staff, room size and amenities, but for some reason the building itself (in the rooms, hallways etc) was hot – far hotter then the outside temperature.
Our first room (and the one we switched to later) both had “air conditioning” which was about as useful as blowing a whiff of air: it did nothing.
Anyhow, the first night we had to sleep with the windows open, overlooking the ring road, on the eleventh floor.
Needless to say, neither of us got a wink of sleep. In the morning (around 10 am) we went down to reception and asked to move.
It took them three hours to organise a room change – by 1pm. In that time we tried to locate a laundry nearby, with no luck. We walked through the local markets outside the building before returning and moving our luggage.
By 1:30pm we still hadn’t even left the local area. The supermarket on the corner seemed to be shut all of Sunday as well so we couldn’t even get basic supplies. Hardly a promising start.
In the end we just sucked it up, and hit the Metro. A trip into town was just the medicine we needed. We caught the Metro to the Lourve station and ascended to street level. Though we were at the Lourve (and there were absolutely no queues) we decided not to go in at that stage.
Instead we walked away from the Lourve in the direction of the Champs Elysees. Our destination was the Arc de Triumph, which is in the middle of a busy roundabout in Place de l’Etoile (or where the Charles de Gaulle metro is located). We took the underpass to cross the busy intersection and paid the admission fee to climb to the top.
The walk up was via a set of spiral stairs, not quite as many as at the Wren monument in London, but as impressive (though wider, thankfully). The view from the top was impressive, and Paris could be seen from a 360’ view.
Once we had taken several photos (it was a brilliantly clear with blue skies) we descended, browsing through the museum which exists inside the top of the arch. There was a camera which via a projector, projected the activities directly under the arch.
Once back on street level, we decided to use the Metro to travel to our next tall destination – you guessed it – Tour Eiffel. Being such a wonderful day, we were sure to get a good view.
We got off the Metro at Bir-Hakim and walked north along the river Seine and across, approaching the tower from the south-west. It was a beautiful day, and the tower was an impressive site. Near the base was a merry go round and a number of other tourists, but generally not what we would consider to be “large” queues.
We joined the elevator queue and waited about half an hour for tickets. There was a big fan spraying the queued tourists with water, even though it really wasn’t that hot (well, compared to Rome at least!).
We finally got into the lift (which had two decks) and ascended to the first level. We stayed on until the second level where we had to switch onto another queue to wait for the elevator to the top floor. On the second floor we managed more photos of the surrounding area and – to be honest – the view was just as good as from the third level.
Once we made it onto the lift (with Toni as nervous as usual when ascending on cable car or glass elevator) we got to experience the great sight of both the city and of the tower’s structure.
The view from the top is actually the highest in Paris. The second highest vantage point is from the dome of Sacre Coeur in Montmartre. At any rate, there were a few people at the top, but it was quite manageable.
It was quite enjoyable starting our adventure from the top and working our way down. We took our time on the descent, although we judged it too early to wait for sunset.
As we started our descent, we lingered on the first level to get a better view of the ground level. It wasn’t until around 7:30 pm that we left the tower before scouting the local area (well away from the tour) for dinner. We ended up eating Japanese!
After dinner we returned to the tower to take some night photos and marvel as the tower “glittered” for ten minutes on the hour. Eventually we boarded the Metro and made our way back to Montreuil to call it a day.
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