Eiffel Tower

After our incredibly stressful day driving in the heavy traffic, we decided to take it easy and stay completely out of the car. We headed down for a late breakfast of croissants and jams, chocolate pastries, ham and cheese bread rolls, cereal, yoghurt, fruit salad and tea and coffee. Yummy!! The croissants were lovely, but we’re thinking we will find better ones elsewhere in Paris. The breakfast room was quite small, seating only 36 guests so it’s quite cosy and we wanted to leave fairly quickly.

We rested all morning and after lunch headed out to see the Eiffel Tower in its full glory. Unfortunately because we were still so stressed from our driving experience yesterday we didn’t feel very romantic but the structure truly took our breath away. 

We walked around the gardens and underneath all four corners and were bugged by lots of vendors sitting on the cement each with hundreds of small souvenir towers lined up in rows in front of them for ridiculously cheap prices. No we didn’t get any but instead queued for the drinks line and bought a 200ml bottle of water for a ridiculously expensive 4 euro!! Amongst hundreds of tourist we navigated our way slowly around the gardens and found a nice patch of grass under the trees. The grass was a little damp, but the view of the Tower was spectacular. Lots of couples were around us all gooey eyed at each other and we stayed an hour enjoying the sight we came to see the most in Paris and we definitely felt more relaxed after being in the park. What a great lying down view for the afternoon!

We walked further along the gardens to take in a wider view of the tower and surrounding park and noticed more vendors, some dancers, musicians and other street performers busking for money. It was a very lively area and wonderful family atmosphere.

Further away from the park we stumbled into tented stalls for a fun-run finish line to support breast cancer then headed back to the hotel past the outward turned chairs at cafe’s. Cafe dining is very much a people watching experience and it felt strange as a passerby being their entertainment. There’s a nice feel to the city and so far we’ve found the people friendly, oh and public transport is very good here. Our hotel is only a couple of stops from most of the places we’d like to see while where here. We’re planning to go up to the top of the Eiffel Tower maybe Monday night but we haven’t finalised on any plans yet. Either way, we’ve had a lovely day and have more to see tomorrow at Omaha Beach so we’re having an early night.

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