Our first day in Paris

Sorry to be so long between blogs. As we are living in Paris city and walking or taking short trips by taxi or metro, I don't get much chance of writing up our experiences on long train trips like I did in London.

When we first arrived at our apartment, we rested before setting out specifically to see the Eiffel Tower, something that we wanted to experience straight away. So we headed off to the Metro station. The Metro is not as "nice" as the London Underground and after figuring out how the ticketing system works (1.75 Euro per trip to anywhere, cheaper for kids and cheaper if you get a book of ten) we caught the metro from Republique to Trocedore.

As you may see the weather was not the best. In fact it varied from gale-force winds and hard rain to bright sunny periods.  At one point, just after we first sighted the tower (and it is an awesome sight which photos do not justice to), we were ready to head back.  But fortunately after a break in the rain we decided to head off towards the tower, across the river.

Along the way we stopped off at a carousel (merry-go-round) where we all had a ride (Muhsina had two) before moving on.

One of the lifts was not working so there was a long line. We got in queue and the time we waited allowed us to appreciate the structure of the tower. We bought tickets right to the top. The first lift takes you to levels 1 and 2 and then you have to change to another set of lifts to take you to the top. 

View from Level 2 is breathtaking. You appreciate the beauty of Paris from up here.  And then we go right to the top where the view is even better. At the top you can look out from behind glass and there is an indicator of direction to major cities (much like Black Mountain Tower in Canberra). Then you go up the stairs and get to see it without the glass (instead there is a wire grill).  This is better for photography as you can lean the camera out of the grill to take the best uninterupted shots.

On level 2 they have a cafeteria but the line was quite long so we headed down.  We then walked east away from the tower just in time to see (and video) the lights coming on at 9pm. It was truly beautiful.
 We then went to the side and came across a small restaurant selling seafood and chinese food so we had dinner there.  It was not cheap but was quite filling.  As we stepped out we could see the top of the tower and the "lighthouse light" projecting and rotating.  We bought some souvenirs from an Algerian man, Firas, who gave us a good discount on postcards etc.

We then caught a taxi home. Normally they don't allow more than 4 passengers but this guy did althought he did slug me an additional 3Euros for his indiscretion.  We went to sleep, ready for another day.