Paris

Photos - the view of the tower that we had while lying in bed, Erith alone atop the tower and the view of our hotel from the tower. Our hotel was the building closest to the middle of the bow of the curved museum and the clump of trees, second floor from the top, right hand end.

Marcus says:

We left Munich the way we found it - cold, rainy, industrial and far too smoky for comfort. The train took us through Austria and it was interesting to watch the transition of the countryside and the architecture, though obviously they would be linked. One thing that impressed us both was the alternative energy in the form of a solar farm and several wind farms - very cool!

We got into the French countryside and because we'd opted for the first class train travel, we were provided with a meal complete with a little bottle of red wine. Erith had a sip just because we were in France and I finished it off in no time. It was very simple wine - not a complicated taste at all, more like spiked grape juice. I'm no expert, but it seemed like a nice everyday wine.

As we moved through France, we could see that every waterway was filled to almost flood point and there was standing water in the fields - they must have had a wet summer. Many of the crops had sections where the rain had obviously flattened it and there was a lot of grain (maybe barley) that looked as though it should be harvested but was still standing. In fact, there were very few combines and very few fields that had been cut, presumably because of the wet. It changed as we got closer to Paris, which I took as a good sign.

Indeed it was a good sign - we got Paris mid-afternoon and although we were exhausted and had the hassle of figuring out the Metro (which is fantastic but very busy), we got to our stop without incident. (Which is to say, I didn't get us lost.) I had booked the hotel on the web and we had high hopes for it - it was a small, boutique hotel supposedly had tower views. We were tired and Erith was trailing me by a couple of paces as we got out of the Metro. "We need to find a reference point" I said, just as I saw the tower. Erith took two steps and looked around, and there was the tower in full view. We both got a big energy charge and decided to go down there oas soon as we had checked into the hotel. The hotel turned out to be directly behind the Museum of Man, which is the best viewing point in Paris of the tower. They had overbooked, so had to move us to an "exectutive suite" for the first night. It was tiny - you couldn't swing a cat. It wasn't particularly lavish either - I guess "boutique" lets you get away with "slightly dumpy".

We went straight down and checked it out for a while, snapping photos like... well, like the zealous tourists that we were. We got a bit of dinner and went back to the room - I knew it was going to be hard to wind Erith down and we wanted to get up early to go up the tower the next morning.

Did the room have views!! Only the top half half of the tower, but from less than a kilometre away it looked pretty spectacular and we could see it from lying in bed. At night when it lit up and then periodically flashed, it was a real sight. Our boutique accommodation really earned its keep when the sun went down... and the lights were low. We had three windows that opened onto the street below - one even had window boxes with flowers. Very Parisian...

We got up the next day and went down to the tower early. Really early. Earlier than anyone - we were first in line and only in line for some time. We ate some oranges and chatted in the sun - it was a nice way to kill an our or so. The line firmed up behind us and quickly got nasty. When they opened the ticket sales at 9:00, we were smug. Erith was racing in through the empty winding barriers and I was hot on her heels. We got our tickets and went to the lift. Then things got weird.

As soon as we got in the lift, the attendant closed the doors and started going up. You need to transfer lifts at level 2 to go to the top, so he dropped us off. We went straight to the lift to go up, and got in. We were joined a minute of two later by four staff, then we started going up. We were at the top without a single other tourist for about five minutes! We couldn't believe it - there were thousands of people waiting below and we knew that the lines would be there until 10:00 pm, yet we had a private viewing of Paris. It was spectacular. Once the crowds started coming, it quickly got to the point where you couldn't move, but we had a short but magic time to ourselves. Unbelievable and very amazing.

We spent the rest of the day doing laundry and wandering around, with a long walk to the ... sorry, out of time - I'll try to catch up tomorrow...