The Eiffel Tower and beyond (Monday 8th July 2013)

A word of advice to all future travelers to Europe in the northern hemisphere summer. Don't bother booking attractions online from home to beat the queues. We tried for the Eiffel Tower about two weeks before we left and found it totally booked out. After seeing the queues yesterday afternoon we thought our hopes were completely dashed. But we made it to the top thanks to Kerry's determination not to be beaten. The secret to your success is pretty simple. GET UP EARLY! We caught the Metro from near the Hotel at 7:00am. By 7:45am we standing very near the front of the queue! The Tower opens at 9:00am. By 8:15am the queue was probably 250 people long. At 9:20am were looking out over Paris from our 328m high vantage point. It was a beautiful, cool and clear summer morning and vision was excellent.

After feasting our eyes for 30 minutes we headed to the Arc de Triomphe under Emily's directions along the leafy Avenue di Iena. A very pleasant walk through a very pleasant neighbourhood. We chose not to climb the monument as we'd just experienced an unmatchable view from a superior elevation. Nevertheless, the monument is massive in proportions and inspiring.

The morning was warming up so we stopped to cool down in a cafe on the river side of the Champs Elysees for a late breakfast of croissant, orange juice and tea. To my great surprise (not) the cafe was just 50m from the Renault dealership!! We popped in for a look at the latest models available in France including some hot Megane's and Clio's from the Renaultsport range. A Red Bull Renault RB8 took pride of place in the front window. It was great to see M. Webber and the Aussie Flag just near the cockpit. Pity that German chap's name was there too. What's his name again?

 

After purchasing a Gordini blue polo shirt, which marks the 50^th anniversary of the first Renault Alpine A110, we headed towards the Place de la Concorde to sit and work out what to do next. While there we witnessed a team of three young girls working hard to fleece unsuspecting tourists. One approaches with paper and pen in hand under the guise of a gatherer of signatures for a petition. Once the pen is in the tourist's hand the other two swoop and surround the unsuspecting victim and put the acid on for money to support cause. We saw two young couples almost fall only to saved by other passers-by.

We made our next plan to catch the Metro to the Paris Opera. The Place de l'Opera was very busy with people and traffic and the day was now hot. We made our way to the entry were there was no queue and a reasonable entry price of 8.50 euro. The other thing we had decidd to do was visit the Georges Pompidou Centre for modern art (on Petra's advice). We elected to save our time and money for that, so we left the Opera for another time. Emily took the lead once again with the map ,taking us down some very interesting small streets and lanes. We came across one spectacular Place – Place de la Victories – a circular “square” with about six street leading into it,

We soon arrived at the Pompidou Centre (after a stop at Subway for an ice-cold drink). The building itself is an engineering novelty have all of its services, including the escalators, on the outside of the building, apparently to make as much room as possible inside the building for exhibition space. The different services and painted in different colours. I'm pretty sure the colour scheme inspired the founders of Google.

We saw an exhibition of the work of Roy Lichtenstein a prominent exponent of Pop Art having come from a background of 1950's and 60's comic magazines. The other exhibition was of the work of Simon Hantin. We then took in the permanent exhibitions and museum. Some bits of modern art I like, some sculptures, some paintings and some Objects d'Art. Other bits I can't come at. One display was a bean-bag. Ok, as a piece of significant furniture of the ages, fine. But art? That's a stretch. What was a real stretch though, was three huge canvasses painted white. That's all. Just white, nothing else. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder....

We caught the Metro back to Place de la Republique, had a very nice pizza for tea and headed home to rest up before our EARLY start for the Louvre tomorrow.