We were all exhausted on Sunday night, me from my transAtlantic travels and Laurie and Mercy from their London sightseeing and Chunnel trip. So, it wasn’t surprising that we slept until 8:45 am, having gone to bed at 10:00 pm.
The problem was that our ticket for the Eiffel Tower Summit tour was for 9:15. Printed boldly on the ticket was the stern warning to arrive a half hour early and that latecomers would have no refunds. Aagghhhhh! I was inwardly panicking and seeing dollars floating away whilst Laurie rousted Mercy out of bed and into clothes. We flew out of the hotel, jumped in a taxi and arrived at the Eiffel Tower at 9:15, to see lines of people and no sign of our tour. However, I didn’t want to appear doom-and-gloom and when Laurie said she saw a bunch of people with yellow berets—tour guides—I encouraged her to go see whether our group was still in the queue. Which it was!! The yellow berets were very friendly (who says Parisians are grumpy?) and they quickly moved us to the front of the line where we were cheerfully greeted by Eric, our guide.
His English was excellent, he ensured everyone in our group (I think there were 12 of us) understood what we needed to do, where we needed to be, and into the elevator we went. Landing at the First Floor, he told us not to stop there but to follow him up to the Summit because there would be more and more people heading for the Summit as the day progressed. The Tower had just opened for the day you see. He was SO right!! There were very few people up on the Summit and we, well, we just drank in the views and listened to Eric’s history lessons. Did you know that when Hitler visited Paris and wanted to have his photo taken on the top of the Tower, the Resistance cut the elevator cables? Hitler refused to walk up the stairs so the only photo of him is one from the ground. Did you also know that “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” is really titled “Notre Dame de Paris” and Hugo wrote the book to goad people into donating funds for Notre Dame’s maintenance? Poignant given the so-recent fire; this time money poured in. Eric pointed down to a small island and a “Statue of Liberty” with its back to us. “It faces New York,” he explained, “Where its sister is.”
We could not have hoped for a better introduction to Paris!! We learned so much history, so many interesting facts. After the Summit, we took the elevator down to the first level and had some much-needed breakfast—Coke Light and a croissant—wandered the level, looked down at the tiny people below and plotted our next event. We decided we would go on the Hop On Hop Off bus, which was part of our Paris Pass and which left from a stop right below the Tower.
As we got on the bus, driver tried to convince us that we should buy an extra day because the Paris Pass only allows one day’s travel and “there is so much to see.” We declined though because we have a lot of other things we plan to do this week anyway. We sat on the top deck and I reacquainted myself with so many things I had seen when I was here in April—the area around the Louvre and the Tuileries mainly—and enjoyed beautiful beautiful Paris.
We got off back in front of the Eiffel Tower and made our way back to our hotel by Metro. Although it was only about 3:30, we were so tired and needed to rest up before our big expedition to the France vs Turkey soccer came at Le Stade de France at 7:30 pm. But on our way, of course we stopped at the corner crepe stand.
And that night we went to the France vs Turkey soccer/football game. I admit, I had been lukewarm about going. I am not soccer mad as Laurie is and I was a little bit worried about going to the game when Turkey was facing such heat from French politicians for invading Syria. But go we did and actually, even though there were probably 60,000 fans in the stadium with what seemed to be an even ratio of French to Turkish fans, from what I witnessed, everyone was really well behaved, only there to see good soccer and to cheer on their teams.
And it WAS good soccer. The game was scoreless until the last half hour when first France and then Turkey scored. The game ended a draw because it isn't a tournament final; that might have been why everyone seemed in a good mood as we surged out of the stadium. It took us an hour to get back to our hotel but we made it without incident. We even made it back in time to have a very late (11ish) dinner at. . .Burger King. Burger King you say? In Paris you say?? Well, yeah. We can't be gourmandes all of the time, especially not with a 15 year old as part of the traveling company ;)
Love your pictures and stories of France!
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