The Eiffel tower by night!

Well, I had to stop my last blog kind of abruptly, but here are a few more photos of our climb up the Eiffel tower.

the line waiting to go up the Eiffel tower

the ladder up the elevator shaft!

the Arc de Triomphe

After that, we got back together with my Dad and walked along the Seine for a bit. We walked up one of the really ritzy streets (George V) up to the Champs Elysee. In some of the windows there was jewelry with insane price tags, like a watch for 71,000 Euro, etc. We then took a metro back to the hotel because the kids were exhausted.

We let them take a late nap (7:30 - 9 pm!), and then headed back into the city around 9 pm, because we wanted to see the special twinkle lights on the Eiffel tower. They illuminate it for 5 minutes every hour on the hour from dusk until 2 am. We knew we were cutting it close to catch the first illumination at 10 pm, so we took a cab to the metro station, caught the metro downtown, one change of trains, then we overheard other US tourists talking about trying to see the lights, too, and so they told us to get off at a different stop (Trocadero). We rushed up to the street level and when we came around a corner, the Eiffel tower was in a magnificant view, just perfect! There were street musicians making music, vendors selling drinks, and lots of people! Then I saw some people climbing up over this little wall (actually it was a dry fountain) to a roof-like platform, so we did the same. We sat/stood on the edge of this wall and had the best view. In fact, I overheard a young couple, who had brought supper and a bottle of wine say that we got he best seats in Paris! The guy told the girl "they probably won't stay long", and sure enough, after we left, they took our spot!!

 We made it just in time ... a few minutes after we got there, the twinkling began! It was fun to watch and we took lots of photos! Alex commented that there would be not better place to be on our last night in Paris and he was right!

 After the twinkling stopped, the boys wanted to walk back down under the tower while it was lit, so we did. Even without twinkle lights the regulat illumination is impressive. We bought some more souveniers (vendors are everywhere peddling their trinkets!) and took some more photos ... is there any other structure that lends itself to photos better than the Eiffel tower? Wow! We did not get back to the hotel until close to midnight again!!

Fortunately we had stopped at a French "Pharmacie" and bought some cough supressant for Ben, so we all slept much better.