The view of the city is pretty amazing.
We went in the church and looked around for quite awhile. Matt wanted to get an icon for his boss, who collects them (and was immediately promoted away from his group after he delivered the icon), and it was of course very beautiful. The huge mosaic overhead is especially stunning. There is a lot of history and some pictures here - I complied with their request to not take pictures inside.
We went back to the apartment, picked up the kids (after feeding them pastries, like we did every morning in Paris, bought from various boulangeries around the neighborhood), and rode a bus down to the Arc de Triomphe, a monument that Zoe was especially excited to see. When you look at a picture like this, it's not clear how big it is! There are 284 steps up the legs to get to a visitor's center and museum in the top - much bigger than it looks!
Here we are, enjoying the gift shop, which had some very nice things that we didn't really see again elsewhere in our shopping. (Maybe we would have bought something if we'd known that!)
I am personally now a fan of Napoleon statues such as this one. Napoleon is everywhere!
We went up on top and looked around, but as soon as I got my camera out it started raining so I only have one picture.
When we got back down, we put on our rain gear and walked down the Champs Elysee for a bit, then walked over to the Eiffel Tower. We had tickets to go to the top! It was still raining, pretty hard for awhile, but it cleared up by the time we got up to the second level (which is the first stop).
After the second floor you walk over to a new elevator and ride alllllllll the way up! (If you have tickets to the top.) Pierce had at first said he wasn't going to go up at all, to any level. I thought he should, so I told him I'd buy him a dozen donuts to go to the top. He so quickly agreed that I realized I needed to qualify my statement, so I explained that he had to enjoy it and look around for it to count. Here he is, outside at the top, standing carefully close to the wall, looking around and enjoying himself a lot (you can tell!). I think he actually did walk around a couple of doors on top, then he went back inside. The top floor is reallllllly high - I think it's 984' up and you can feel it sway a little.
I loved it! The girls loved it! I think Matt did not love it, but he hung in there while we walked all around and took a million pictures.
It was really cold and windy at the top! Brrrrr.
There were some interesting things inside too, including Gustav Eiffel's office where there's a wax Gustav, and a comparison of high structures in other countries. Pierce saw more of that than we did -but we eventually all went down to the second and then first floors to look around.
The first floor has a glass section where you can see the park below you. There are restaurants (on top and on the first floor) and more gift shops, and we really liked walking around.
Matt and Pierce were especially happy to get safely down. We found a great spot for photography in the park around the tower - it's actually all fenced off but you can't see that here (or maybe we were inside the fence?).
All around the gates there are guys trying to sell you miniature towers. And they are SERIOUS about selling their towers! They all have the same things and they are super high pressure salesmen. Mattie bought one for a friend and I think Zoe got something, but I was happier getting out of there. Then we walked to a market and a boulangerie for lunch, and we got some extra delicious bread and cheese (which makes the best lunch!) and some delicious drinks to picnic with by the water. We walked for a long time and found a bridge to this cool island in the Seine where we could eat and rest for awhile. There was a photographer taking bridal portraits with this amazing view of the tower (not shown, I was too tired to get my camera out). Then we tried some more shopping, and Matt found some shoes that he really liked (which disappointingly fell apart up getting them home), and we decided to take a boat ride at the right time to see the tower sparkle once it got dark, so we headed back that direction.
Here's the view from the Trocadero park, gorgeous. This is where people go to take family portraits with the tower in the background.
We were there at the wrong time of day, and not at all dressed for it, so I just tortured the kids with a few pictures.
There was some drama with finding a boat ride, but it worked out and we set off on a water taxi down the Seine.
It had been pretty chilly for most of the day, but it finally warmed up a little, and the light was beautiful!
Going under a really pretty bridge.
This is the best view you could get of Notre Dame - that part of the Isle de la Cite is now blocked off, after the fire. As you can see, the structure still looks good from the outside.
But it will be a long time before it's restored. In any case we were happy to get to see it as well as we did.
Sunset is the perfect time for a boat ride on the Seine.
Another extra-ornate bridge.
When we got back, we still had quite awhile before the first sparkle, which happens on the hour after dark. I think the first one must have been at 10:00pm, because this was May 28th and the days were really long. So we got some of the best crepes we had the whole trip - nutella and strawberry - at the base of the tower from a tourist trap creperie. Our hopes weren't very high, but they were amazing! I think we had 3/4" of nutella on there - messy but so good! And it was fun to see them make the crepes - true professionals. Then we waited on the bridge for night.
The lighting on the tower is really pretty after dark.
And here is the moment we were waiting for - the sparkle! It's worth staying up for. I think they flash all the little lights for five minutes or so. Magic!
We caught a bus and rode it home, exhausted and happy. It's so fun to look at these pictures especially, because it was something we'd looked forward to so much.
Mattie clocked 23,448 steps for us - but Matt and I walked quite a bit farther, as we would know if I had remembered to save my step count, because of our morning trip to Sacre Couer. Fun!
