Paris, Day 4 - Saturday, July 16 - Eiffel Tower and Hôtel des Invalides
We had decided that today would be the day to do the Eiffel Tower, and so since we were unsuccessful in getting advance reservations we knew we had to brave the lines. Our guru Rick said the best bet was to get there and line up a half hour before the Tower opened at 9:00. That was our goal. We woke up at 6:45, showered, got ready and packed up our backpacks intending to head out straight after breakfast, and not back up to our rooms. We did pretty well—we actually were walking to the subway by 8:30. We hopped on at Place de la Concorde, and had to transfer trains at La Motte Piquet before getting off at the Bir-Hakeim station. We had to walk about five to ten minutes, until we saw the line ahead of us, which was just the security check (it seems every single tourist attraction sadly has a security check, and they always look through your bags). We were lined up along a wire fence and could see the line for the ticket office stretching out before us forever, beneath the base of the tower. Once we got through security, we took our place in this large queue. Resigning ourselves that we’d be there for a while, Ewan and I went off to take a quick peek in the souvenir shop while Gavin held our place in line. We were only there for five minutes or so when clearly I heard Gavin’s voice bellow above the din of the crowd, “JULIEEEEEE!!!!!!” I made Ewan drop the turquoise Eiffel Tower keyring that he was contemplating, and I grabbed his hand as we ran toward Gavin, as the line in front of him had been split and directed to a different ticket office that they had just opened up at one of the other pillars of the tower. Sweet! We were now basically at the front of the new line that had formed, and we were soon at the ticket window and in the elevator heading up. There are three levels of the tower. The elevator ascended past the first level, and terminated at the second level. Unfortunately the sky was cloudy and grey, but the views were still amazing.
Paris has got to be one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, with the most recognizable landmarks, and we could see them all really well. The second level actually was two stories. The bottom story was enclosed within the grid of a wire fence, but the top level was narrower, as the tower tapered to the peak, and so the views from here were unobstructed by a fence, which was nice. We circulated the deck framing photos and I snapped tons of selfies, much to Gavin’s annoyance.
Once we had had enough of this level, we lined up to take the next elevator to the summit. The summit was also two stories, the lower of which was enclosed in glass, which was terrible for taking photos, and the upper level had the gridded fence, with holes just big enough to stick a big SLR lens through. It was understandably much more crowded at the top, given the much smaller platform. Still, it wasn't hard to get to the edge to see the views, and people were generally polite and just happy to be up there. At one point, I thought I heard sobbing behind me, and I turned to see a young man had just proposed to his girlfriend, and she stood there gazing at her ring, tears in her eyes! So romantic!
After we had soaked in enough of the views, we took the elevator back down to the second level, circled the platform again, and Gavin encouraged us to take the stairs instead of the elevator back down to the base. This exercise afforded us new views and a close up look at the tower’s construction, not to mention more calories burned!
Back at the bottom, we walked through the Champ de Mars park, where we saw lots of evidence of the Bastille Day celebration from a couple nights prior as trash and hundreds of empty champagne and beer bottles littered the grassy field. We were heading in the general direction of Hôtel des Invalides, where Napoleon is buried beneath a glistening golden dome. My parents had told us about a cafe that was right across the street from the gorgeous building that supposedly had the best coffee in all of Paris. We found the cafe, and we were surprised that it sat all alone in the middle of a quiet square facing the dome of les Invalides. We were seated at a table right at the edge of the patio, with a perfect view of the dome, just as the grey skies started to burn off giving a lovely blue backdrop to the sparkling gold dome. We ordered lunch from menus only in French—a good sign—and proceeded to enjoy the most amazing meal of the trip so far. We ordered a refreshing half bottle of rose from the côtes de Provence, and Gavin and I each had the most delicious salad with ham,golden roasted potatoes, and toast with goat cheese.
Ewan had a creamy, flaky, buttery quiche Lorraine and we all shared a pear and pistachio tart for dessert (with coffee, of course!) With full bellies and a pleasant buzz from our day-drinking, we set out across the street to pay our respects to Napoleon.
We bought our tickets and entered the ornate tomb. His coffin lies directly below the towering dome, a level below the main floor, where you can gaze at it from a circular balcony. We walked down the stairs to get a closer look at the stone sarcophagus.
We then moved on to the army museum, in the building behind the dome. The complex is a military school as well as museum, and it is huge. The museum chronicles the history of war from the stone age through modern times. There were several different galleries, but we chose to focus on the section on the first two World Wars, which appealed most to my two boys. Ewan was quite engaged learning about the history, especially of World War II, and Gavin did a great job explaining. The museum had an excellent display of all kinds of artifacts, from uniforms to weapons to newspaper and journal clippings to multimedia displays and films. We spent a good two hours in there, and that was just in that one wing—we never even made it to the middle ages or earlier sections!
From there we headed on foot towards the river, and back towards our hotel. We walked along the river embankment, down below street level, past floating bars and restaurants, and loads of locals and tourists alike, relaxing riverside.
We came upon a water fountain on the sidewalk, where people were lining up to refill their water bottles. Thirsty from all of our walking, we joined the short queue, delighted to discover that this wasn't just plain Parisian tap water, but it was actually chilled, sparkling water! How civilized! Only in France.
Back to the hotel we continued, stopping at the concierge to get assistance for booking our dinner reservation at a nearby restaurant called Le Soufflé. Luckily it was right around the corner, as I was exhausted from all of our daily trekking. We thought we’d order the set menu which included an appetizer (we both opted for the tomato basil soufflé), main (Gavin had salmon, Ewan and I had chicken) and dessert (Gavin had rhubarb, I had peach/apricot, Ewan had chocolate). And wine, of course. The meal was huge, and we didn’t even come close to finishing it all. It was good, but not sure anyone really needs three full courses of soufflé! Still, it was a fun experience. All three of us returned to the room and promptly passed out!
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