Iconic Paris

We did the Eiffel Tower climb this morning - a first for me. I didn’t do it the last trip. It was 674 stairs to the 2nd floor - and then we took the elevator to the summit, the height of an 81 story skyscraper. Back when it was built in 1889 (for the Worlds fair) it was the tallest structure in the world at that time!

We learned all sorts of things on our tour - one fact I found interesting: when The Nazis invaded France, Hitler wanted a photo op of him personally hanging the Nazi flag from the top of the tower. The French would not hear of it, and cut the cables to the elevators, rendering them useless - and Hitler was said to have been afraid of heights and wouldn’t do the hike to the top - so no Nazi flag ever was flown. They said “you can take our country, but you cannot take our tower”.

We walked through the river area and saw a few sites on the way - I love seeing the Egyptian obelisk. It was a gift to the French, and an identical one stands at the Luxor temple with a blank space representing this one. Fun that I’ve seen them both! Then went to the Arc de Triumph. A military monument built in the center of Paris. That turned out to be another 282 stairs. My legs were shaking by the time we got down.

We jumped on a hop on/hop off bus for a bit of a rest - which are really nice if you ever get a chance. Very relaxing. Then went on a Seine River cruise. We topped off our evening seeing the Eiffel Tower at night all lit up. Pretty sight.

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