Last Day in Paris: Adieu to the Arc de Triumphe, a boat ride down the Seine and a midnight climb up the Eiffel

Arc de Triumph


This is part of a travelogue, chronicling my twenty-one day trip to Europe last summer. 

 On our last day in Paris, Derek and I walked down the Champ Elysees to the Arc de Triumph.  We were on a street corner, looking at our map when  a young French woman approached us and asked us where we were going.  She then walked us most of the way.  She said she was going that way to deliver a letter anyway.  I thought, her mailbox is awfully far away from her apartment.  Between you and me I think she was just being nice.

Stairwell up the Arc de Triumphe

 I can not emphasis enough how valuable getting a Paris pass is.  We saved hours waiting in line.  We got to bypass everyone and go straight to the top.  This was true for all the museums as well.  The only things that the pass didn't cover was Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower.

I had no idea how huge the Arc de Triumphe was.  I got a lot of cute bookmarks from the gift shop on top.

That evening Derek and I went on a boat ride.  While we waited on the Seine river for it to commence I took a few more photos of the Eiffel Tower.  It is so impressive, I couldn't stop snapping.  Every angle seemed to demand I preserve the moment with my camera. 

I'd like to see this guy get in his little car.

Scenes along the Seine

The following photos are what we saw on the boat ride along the Seine.

As we floated under a bridge.

It was hard to keep track of what the recorded narrator said about each building on the ride because it was repeated in several different languages: German, English, French, Chinese, Japanese etc.

 When we finally returned it was around ten o clock.  As you can see it is still light.  Summer days are  very long in Paris.  We got in line to get to the top of the Eiffel.  The wait was over two hours.

The tower in the evening, around eleven pm.

 It was a long arduous wait, but we arrived at the top of the Eiffel at precisely midnight.  My camera didn't take the most brilliant photos of Paris at night, but I think they have their own special appeal.

At the foot of the Eiffel looking straight up.

At the second level of the tower.

Midnight on top of the Eiffel.

By this time I am more than a little wiped out.

Paris at night or abstract art?  Maybe both!

Paris at midnight

Elevator going down to the second level.

 We found out at the second level that we could climb down the stairs to the ground.  Derek and I eagerly got out of the elevator line and began climbing down one of the legs of the tower.  Or rather, we ran down.  I wasn't sure when the subway trains stopped running.  I didn't relish the idea of getting a taxi.  Taxis are the only negative experience on my European trip.  The drivers really are a bunch of crooks.  The only reason you should take a taxi is if you have money to burn.

Running down the stairwell of the Eiffel

Derek and I sprinted to the closest subway station, a block away, only to find ourselves ensconced among crowds of people also waiting  for the train.  Silly little east Texan.  Paris stays open long after midnight.

I saw many scenes on the subway I would have liked to capture with my camera.  One was the pole I was grabbing with twenty other hands.  It was such a cool image:  all these disembodied hands and arms going off in all different directions and angles.

The Eiffel Tower at midnight

Another scene I'll always remember was a couple of young French girls who were seated next to where I was standing.  The one girl was dominating the conversation chatting away a mile a minute as the train wound its way up to the near northern section of the city where my hostel was.

Suddenly, at one stop, she jumped up with an exclamation. She and her friend pushed their way out of the crowd barely before the doors closed.  Evidently they were not intending to disembark here.  By the girl's breathless and excited laughter I knew there must be somebody they knew outside on the platform that they weren't expecting to see.  Or maybe they came upon their stop more quickly than they realized.  

 I looked out the window and saw the object of their excitement.  Or objects. Two young men were there waiting for  them.  I wish I could adequately describe this girl and how she laughed as she made her way through the crowd to get to her male friends.  To me it was such a charming picture of Parisian youth culture.
 

Exhausted and barely able to stand, Derek and I walked the few blocks from the subway to our hostel.  We were starving, but what was open?  Across the street from our place was a Turkish falafel shop.  We went in and for only a couple of Euros plowed through plates piled high with lamb and french fries, washed down with coke. 

While I was standing at the counter waiting for my food, a group of young people sauntered in.  A pretty girl with flowing curly hair stood next to me and grinned hugely at me.  At this point in time, she would not have passed anybody's sobriety test.  She said a few words in French to me but quickly surmised I didn't understand and switched to English.  The remainder of the time in the restaurant she spoke English to everybody, including the cook, whom she joined behind the counter, insisting that she help him.

As I sat down at my table and ate, I thought, "That's great.  This girl can speak fluent English drunk and I can't speak comprehensible French sober.  I blame it on our educational system."

At two in the morning, Derek and I dragged ourselves up the four flights of stairs to our rooms and collapsed onto our beds.  We didn't bother changing clothes.  We had to get up in two hours to catch our plane to Barcelona.  

Goodbye Paris.  I hope we'll meet again one day.

Previous posts of my European Trip:

Another Day in Paris: Arc de Triumphe

Paris First Day

Switzerland :Gimmelwald and Murren

Third Day in Switzerland

Montreux, Switzerland

Milan

Venice 

Pisa and Cinque Terre 

Florence 

Rome 


 
Further Links:

Paris Pass

Paris Museum Pass 

Eiffe's Tower by Jill Jonnes 

Another day in Paris: Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower, Champs Elysees

It has been quite some time since I posted.  Then I've been having problems with getting posts published.  I THINK I have solved the problem.  We'll see if anyone gets this post.  This is my last day in Paris, but not the last post on it.  My experience on the Eiffel tower deserves its own post.  

These photos were taken on the Champs Elysees, the Arc de Triomphe, the River Seine, and the Eiffel Tower.

The Champs Elysees

Arc de Triomphe

View from the Arc de Triomphe

Atop the Arc de Triomphe

View of the Champs Elysees from the Arc de Triomphe

Underbelly of the famous Arch

Eiffel's Tower by Jill Jonnes

Jill Jonnes gives the reader a delightful and enlightening account of how one of the modern wonders of the world was built and the history surrounding it.

 Gustave Eiffel was commissioned to build an edifice to celebrate the Republic of France in time for the Paris World Exhibition of 1889.  Something that would impress the rest of the world and prove to the rest of Europe that a country did not need royalty to govern her people.

Predictably, most of Europe boycotted the Exhibition in protest, since they all still had Kings and Queens, even if, like in England's case, the royalty was largely a figure head and the country was practically run by a Democratic parliament.  Still, Queen Victoria and her retinue stayed ostensibly away.  (Her son and his wife sneaked into Paris to see it.  If Queen Victoria knew it, she didn't acknowledge it.)

Very much on France's side was America.  They not only attended in abundance but were amply represented in the Fine Arts section and especially on the cultural side.  One of the most interesting aspects of Jonnes' book is the side stories about what happened peripherally around Paris' Tour en Fer.

For one, William Cody, aka Buffalo Bill, and his Sioux Indians came.  They made a huge sensation with their Wild West reenactments, even if they presented a romanticized version of how the West was one.  We learn quite a bit about Annie Oakley, a person the French came prepared to be bored with, but were completely won over with her sharp shooting skills.  She not only shot holes in cards while racing around the tent on horseback but could shoot and slice the card in half sideways.  Jonnes also gives the back stories of these legendary figures which adds interest to the characters.

Another American that came and was feted was Thomas Edison.  He was continually  given dinners in his honor and was the toast of the town.  His inventions, such as the phonograph, were on display at the exhibition and lines wrapped around the fairgrounds as people waited their turn to speak into a device and then hear their own voice repeating their words moments later.

James Abbott McNeil Whistler is mainly the only American artist that Jonnes describes and he spent most of his life in France.  We learn about his temperament (fiery and atrocious-Degas said if he could paint with his tongue he'd be a genius) and his works.  His most famous work, Whistler's Mother, can still be seen in the Louvre.

But this is the Paris Exhibition, after all.  Even though Jonnes spends a generous amount of the book describing the visiting Americans, she also gives us insight into contemporary attitudes towards what today is considered some of the world's greatest art: The Impressionists.

The French Impressionists, Monet, Degas etc...were completely cut out of the Official
French Art Exhibit by the French jury.  So they bought their own venue at the Fair to exhibit their works and called it the Salon des Refusees (Salon of the Refused).  Vincent Van Gogh and his friend, Paul Gaugin, also set up their own venue.  History, of course, tells us whose art has endured.

But the most important part of the book is about Gustave Eiffel himself.  Throughout the book we learn of his life, his background, his other engineering feats-both the good and the failed (such as a disastrous attempt to create a canal and locks across Panama that left thousands bankrupt and impoverished and for which Eiffel was sent to prison).

We vicariously experience his struggles to finance his vision of the tallest tower in the world.  An engineering feat that would prove France's dominion as a Republic and reign in modern technology.  We are rooting for him as he and his workers labor desperately around the clock to have the tower built in time for the fair.  We learn how he used his concepts for railroad tracks and basically applied them vertically to create his tower.

It's amusing to us now to know that there was such protest against it.  Here's a sample of some of the remarks by certain well known contemporaries such as Guy de Maupassant, Alexandre Dumas  fils (son of the famous writer), and Charles Gounoud.

For the Eiffel Tower, which even commerical America would not have, is without a doubt the dishonor of Paris.  Everyone feels it, everyone says it, everyone is profoundly saddened by it, and we are only a weak echo of public opinion so legitimately alarmed....

  And for the next twenty years we will see cast over the entire city, still trembling with the genius of so many centuries, cast like a spot of ink, the odious shadow of the odious column of bolted metal.

It seems contemporary France did not possess much vision concerning its artists or engineers.  I'm sure the average French man thinks differently today.

Interestingly, the original agreement was that the tower would remain for twenty years after the fair and then be dismantled.  Fortunately, Eiffel was able to prove it's value as a telegraph tower during WWI.  By the time Eiffel died of a stroke at the ripe old age of ninety-one in 1923, his tower had become a permanent fixture of the Paris skyline.  "I ought to be jealous of the tower," he joked.  "It is much more famous than I am."

At 915.7 feet it surpassed the Washington Monument to become the tallest building in the world at the time.  The Americans, Thomas Edison the most vocal among them, promised to surpass the tower with something even taller in time for the Chicago's World Fair.

This was not to be, although a giant wheel  with gondolas which  took people up and around was invented by George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr for the occasion, it only topped out at 264 feet. It would take another forty-one years for American engineers to develop what would become  known as the skyscraper and the Chrysler building would finally dethrone Eiffel's famous tower.


But Eiffel should be jealous.   How many people know that the name "Eiffel" should have a possessive written after it? (The French still call it the Tour en Fer, "Tower of the Fair").  And let's not forget that it is also Eiffel's Statue of Liberty that greets people on a little island off Manhattan.

I bought this book.