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Eiffel Tower & Arc De Triomphe
We had a light day scheduled for
today. We left the hotel around 1100. We got Pain Aux Chocolait
at the patiserre (pastry shop) around the corner from the hotel
and hit the road. We went down about 8 subway stops. We stopped
at a park about 2 blocks from the Eiffel Tower and ate our
breakfast.
We got to the Eiffel Tower around
noon. We came into the park around the north pier. I took a few
shots around and under the base. I walked back as far as I could
in the grassy area on the southwest side of the tower in Camps
de Mars park. I could have gotten back a little further but you
could not get on that grass and I did not want the image to be
off center.
Dick did not feel up the 360
steps up to the first level. It was quite a hike. Nothing to
show you how out of shape you are than that many flights of
stairs. Apparently, there is an elevator up to the first level,
but I did not see it anywhere near where I paid my €3.50 to
enter and up the stairs I went.
It was quite a hike up to the
first level. They had a couple of areas that went around the
entire structure. I took several pictures of the skyline and the
parks below.
I knew I could take the elevator
up to the second level. The guy at the ticket window more or
less told me as much. He said I had to get the ticket to the
second level on the first level. After make my rounds to get my
pictures, I proceeded to walk around the level a few more times
until I FINALLY found the ticket area.
It seems like they made things
harder than they needed to be because I was reading all of the
signs as I walked around and the only way I finally found it was
by reversing direction and approaching the south leg in the
opposite direction. There was the ticket machine tucked under
the south pier.
I paid my €3.30 for the elevator
ride from the first level to the second level. The first time I
went to take a picture on the ride up, all my camera did was
beep. More than once. I flipped open the camera screen and saw
the dreaded 'this card cannot be used' message. I have seen this
on occasion with this camera and my previous ones. The solution
seems to be to turn off the camera, take out the compact flash
card, reinsert it, and turn the camera back on. It is an
intermittent, occasional, easily remedied problem but very
annoying
in situations like this one where
I simply missed shots.
Once on the second level, I again
got some nice shots of the skyline and the immediate area. By
this time an hour had passed, I did not want to have to figure
the ticket situation, so I decided it was time to go.
We next went to the Arc de
Triomphe. This did not take too long to walk around, look at
everything, take my pictures and move on. You walk up 288 steps
to the higher level but I was not up to it. I was pleased with
what I got so we headed out off for lunch.
We ate at MacDonald's. I got a
Menu Grand Royale Bacon Maxi (Quarter Pounder Value meal, super
size). It was €5.80). The food was similar (but not exactly) the
same. The bacon was more like ham or Canadian bacon and they had
some kind of ranch sauce for the fries. It was adequate, not
spectacular by any means, but hey, it was just MacDonald's.
We got back to the hotel at 1540.
It took about 45 minutes to off load, rotate and autobalance the
242 pictures taken today.
We headed out to attend an Organ
Recital by 24-year old Canadian Vincent Dubois at Notre Dame. On
the way there, we saw our saw accident during our time in Paris.
The first happened on Saturday night. We saw a small white van
turn right and a guy on a bicycle go down. It was a very slow
speed accident and we could not tell if the van cut in front of
the bicyclist or the van just clipped the bicyclist as he went
by. The guy on the back jumped up unhurt and gave the guy a few
a choice words. He walked away and the bike was not seriously
damaged. We witnessed the second accident in its entirety. We
were waiting to cross over to Notre Dame coming down Rue St.
Bernadins. We were watching traffic on our right moving off
after a stop light. I woman in the third lane tried to make a
right across two lanes of traffic. A woman in a Renault crashed
right into the right passenger door of the car making the highly
illegal right hand turn. The Renault was not visibly damaged.
The turning car had the whole door caved in. Neither that door
nor the window will ever open again.
Now, we headed over to Notre Dame
and the Organ Recital. We got in line around 2000 and entered
the Cathedral around 2020. We were 15th or 20th
in line. We paid €15.00 for the concert. The three featured
pieces were Deuxieme Symphonie en mi, opus 20, 1920 by Lois
Viernce, Scherzo Opus 2 by Maurice Durufle, and Evocation Opus,
1941, by Marcel Dupre. It was quite impressive to hear and feel
the huge pipe organ in Notre Dame really get cranking. You can
feel it in your body and your bones. The organ is so huge you
can hear the separation between certain notes because of the
distance between them. The echoes lasted from 3 to 5 seconds and
certain volumes.
We did not eat dinner until 2230,
far later than normal. We had dinner at a fast Chinese
restaurant. I had rice with chicken and cillantro peppers. Dick
had the rice with cashew chicken. The price for both was €21.00
and it was pretty tasty.
I worked on my notes for the day
and started working on putting together a web page for the trip.
While flipping through the channels, I saw the were showing the
NASCAR Nextel Cup race from Richmond that ran last Saturday
night. I started watching around lap 117 around midnight. They
did not show pit stops and the skipped a lot of laps, but I got
to see maybe 150-200 laps of the race. NASCAR is truly
international when an American can watch in Paris with German
narration. Who’d'a thunk it?!?!?!? On top of that, my favorite
driver, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. won the race. It was 0100 and time
to go to bed. |
