Tourist Day

Sunday - September 14, 2008

We slept in until 9am - a little later than we wanted to - but we guessed we really needed it. We picked up quick pastries for breakfast again then made our way over to the cyber cafe to try to get our updates done but it didn't open at the time the woman said it would - even after waiting for fifteen minutes. Had we not already paid for time that we hadn't used yet we'd have looked for another web cafe. We've learned our lesson - for our next trip we're going to bring a laptop with us. It will make picutre uploards and blog updates so much easier. There are a few nice squares and parks in the city that have wi-fi access for free - so we're definately taking advantage of them next time around - and we're going to let everyone we know to do the same!

We got over our displeasure and headed for our day's activities - so off to the Metro we went!
This day was set aside to be our biggest tourist day. We planned to see the big guys, plus do a little geocaching at a cememtary.

We got off the Metro at Grand Palais and took picutres of it and the Petit Palais. From there we walked to Pont Alexandres III for more photos. We stood there at teh bridge for a while why we decided on the route to our next destination. We walked along the Seine on the upper loft along Quai D'Orsay until we reached Pont de L'Alma and crossed over the river.

We'd made it to the landmark of The Liberty Flame. Its a scale replica of the Statue of Liberty's torch and was built to commemorate the Resistance Fighters of the 1940's, but most recently has become a memorial to Princess Diana since the entry to the underground passageway that her accident occured at was right below the statue. It is also a stop for a photo/virual cache for Geocaching - so we compounded our visit. We took the picuture to use for the cache's log, then I left a message on the monument. I put a small note on a piece of paper and using my scrapbooking adhesive I taped it to the base of the flame. The note said, "Diana, Thank you for your beauty and your grace. The angels are lucky to have you. Love, John, Karen & Edana" We spent a reverent moment at the location before moving to our next spot.

We walked up Avenue George V up to the Champs Eylsees and then turned left. There at the next intersection was the Arc de Triomphe. We kept our pace and made our way to the Arc's underground entrance. We took pictures outside and around all the sides of the Arc before climbling the steps to the top - it was as arduous as the ascent to the top of Notre Dame, but again was worth the trip.
We could see out down the different streets and recognize different landmarks throughout the city. It was fascinating to see - I was a little unsteady from the climb up the steps so I had to sit down for a bit before we could consider moving. We enjoyed the visual diaramas inside that explained and highlighted various information about the monument, from its construction to its iconography, including its history and historic moments.

From the Arc we took a metro to the Trocadero station and made our way to the Chaillot and the esplanade of the Trocadero. We got to see the Eiffel Tower up close and personal. We took a few pictures but then we decided to go to the nearby cemetary first so we could get our geocaching done before it closed for the day. We followed the GPSr to the geocache location within the cemetary (once we found the entrance to the cemetary) and we sent Scout on his way. We dropped off a couple other travel bugs and picked up a couple more to take back home with us. We spents a little more time within the cemetary looking at the beautiful gravesites. The most famous person we recognized was Eugene Manet, impressionist painter. We would have liked to stay a little longer, but Gustave's masterpiece called to us - so off to the Eiffel Tower we went.

As we crossed the plaza we noticed two large groups of commotion. I looked at John when I head a familiar tune being played and I asked, "Is that the MacGyver theme I'm hearing?" he just grinned and said yeah...we quickly made our way over to the larger group of people to see teenagers performing - the MacGyver theme was over by the time we had arrived - but we watched through the crowd for a little bit. The other group was a mass of Asain poeple that were standing in formation in a specific pose - I thought that they were practicing meditation but John said that it was a protest against Bejing, he said that he had seen signs and saw people handing out literature while we were passing.
There was some sort of transportation fair going on at the lower level of the Trocadero so there was a bit of activity. We could see hordes of people below the Eiffel Tower - so I wasn't sure what to expect - but I did prepare myself for the crowd. We stopped at the Trocadero fountain to rest before making our way to the tower. I dipped my feet in the COLD water. It was a very refreshing and invigorating dip. The fountains weren't on so a lot of people were taking advantage of the opportunity to cool off. A group of teenagers were practically swimming in it, they were drenched! My tired feet enjoyed the relaxing chill - but it was time to move on.

We got in line to buy our tickets after stopping at a vendor cart for a sandwich, crepe, and a slush. We affirmed our earlier suspicion and have firmly decided that we are not crepe people. The sandwich and the slush was pretty good though. While in line for our tickets we talked to the woman and her young daughter that were in line behind us. We found out that they were from Los Angeles and in Paris for a couple of days before continuing on to Cannes.

We weren't in line too long until we got our tickets and then moved our way to the elevators/inclinators. I didn't know that when you get on the elevator you go directly to the highest floor you bought a ticket for first. I thought we would be able to gradually make our way up at our leisure, but no. I generally wouldn't have cared, except that I was hoping to get to the post office on the first floor before it closed at 7pm to send off some post cards with the official Eiffel Tower cancellation stamp, and it was already a little after six.

We took the elevator to the second floor - then had to follow a separate queue to the top - and it seemed like the line to get to the top was just as long as the one to get into the tower itself. So I made up my mind to get over it - I didn't want to spoil the experience by rushing through it. I was really nervous about going up to the top and had said out loud to John, "This is the highest I've ever been up." and a woman who had overheard me said, "Uh uh, you've been in a plane." I felt a little stupid as I realized she was right - but John said that he understood that I meant its the highest I'd ever been in a standing structure.

Once we got out of the elevator I thought, okay - we're here - but we still had one flight of steps to reach the upped platform, it wasn't a very big flight - but it was another set of stairs for my tired legs and feet! The upper deck was packed! There were so many people and it was windy - but the view!!! It was phenomenal!! I was a little scared the whole time I was up there - but I was so glad I did it. There was a champagne bar selling small flutes of champagne for 10Euro for anyone who wanted to toast at the top - we didn't, but we thought it was funny that it was there.

By the time we were ready to go downstairs it was almost 7pm, so we rushed as quickly as we could to see if we could make it to the post office - we got there with five minutes to spare - just enough to send off a small amount of cards home, and I was glad to be able to send the ones that I could. We walked around for a little longer then we were ready to head down - our feet were so tired and we still needed to get back to the hotel. We heard someone tell another person that the wait to get from the second floor to the top platform was an hour because the top was at full capacity right then - John and I looked at each other and we smiled that we didn't get caught in with the other people still waiting.

We made our way down to the ground and sat under the tower for a little while and people watched. There was still a long line of people waiting to buy tickets and go up the tower, we again were very happy that we got in and out when we did. After sitting for a few minutes I caught a whiff of something that smelled really delicious - pomme frittes, french fries!!!
I went over and got us some and we nibbled as we sat there people watching and enjoying the scene that lay before us. We eventually gathered up our energy and headed back to the Marais.

The RER and the Metro ride back to our stop at St. Paul wasn't too bad - I think it was late enough in the day so it wasn't too busy. We stopped again at the cyber cafe and were able to get some pictures done -but we still had quite a few to get through. John picked up fallafels again for dinner but it caused a bit of a sensation with the cafe owner - so some of it spilled on me and everywhere else. John had pretty much had it with the woman by this time - but again, since we had time already paid for he kept his patience - we weren't there too long before it was time to close and by then we were ready to get back to the hotel and go to bed.

-Karen