The Eiffel Tower by night

Before we came away, I booked tickets to go up the Eiffel Tower at dusk, so we could look across the city at night. Like I said in a previous blog, this trip is all about twinkling lights! The first visit was cancelled because of strike action (not something I’d envisaged would happen! Security alerts, yes. Strike action, no!), but our trip went ahead yesterday.

We started the day by visiting the Bastille Tower topped with the Angel of Liberty. Then we walked through the narrow back streets of the Marais, interspersed with pretty squares, grand buildings, exclusive shops, and inviting cafés and bistros.

After a while, we reached the Pompidou Centre, a very modern piece of architecture, with all its utility pipes on the outside… green for water, yellow for electricity and blue for air conditioning. It’s also a museum, but we couldn’t go inside today… more strike action, we think. I’m sure many people think the building is a monstrosity (including John) but I quite liked it.

By now my tummy was rumbling and I was getting hangry, so we found a street full of cafés and restaurants. It was difficult to choose, but we settled on a créperie. It was very busy inside but the waitress offered us a table at a bar by the kitchen. We enjoyed watching the savoury galettes and sweet crépes being made while we ate our delicious meals, washed down with Breton cider. Yummy!

John had read an article about Parisian Passages and, after lunch, we visited five of these. They were all covered arcades dating from the late 18th to mid 19th century, but they varied in character. One was filled with exclusive high end shops, another had smaller more authentic outlets selling items such as old stamps, bottle tops, posters and postcards, and the rest were somewhere in between.

All were very pretty, especially when we looked up at the glass ceilings and carved decorations, and down at the tiled floors. It was fun to explore, but soon it was time to make our way across the city to the Eiffel Tower.

By now, my feet were aching from all the walking, so we made our way to a metro station. After a few problems trying to buy tickets from the machine, we gave up and John bought them from a helpful lady in the ticket office. Finally, we boarded a packed train and were on our way.

We walked from the Ecole Militaire, through the gardens of the Champs-de-Mars. Once we reached the Eiffel Tower, despite having bought advance tickets, we joined a long queue to get through security, then another long queue for the toilet, then a another long queue for more security checks. By now I was getting grumpy and wondering why we’d bothered!

That was all forgotten after we’d climbed 327 steps from the ground to the first floor, then a further 347 steps to the second floor. Although it was busy, there was plenty of space for everyone to see the wonderful views of the city. It was still quite light so we treated ourselves to a glass of rosé each (3 euros cheaper from the café inside than at the stall outside!) and settled down to watch night fall.

We watched as the lights in the city came on, highlighting many of the beautiful buildings dotted around. Despite it being a cloudy day, we could see for miles, from the River Seine beneath us, to Sacré-Coeur in the distance.

When we’d had enough, we made our way back down the tower., stopping at the first floor (57 metres high). The views, surprisingly to me, were quite different from here. The buildings and people on the ground felt so close after being so high up… and we’d only been to the second floor (115 metres high) and not the very top of the tower (320 metres high), which was fully booked.

The floodlights on the tower come on at sunset, and the lighting highlights its complex iron structure really well. It was fascinating looking up at it and imagining it being built. It is enormous, but graceful and rather beautiful.

As we walked back to a metro station further along the river, a sign reminded us that we’ll be back in Paris for the Olympic Games in a matter of months. It’s very unusual for us to be visiting a city, never mind twice in a year!