Day #120 - Paris, France

Overlooking the Seine and the Grand Palais

Invalides

Eiffel Tower - walking underneath

View from top of Eiffel Tower

Eiffel Tower at 10pm - lights blinking

Monday, July 12th

Today we took a 7:15am train out of Geneva for Paris arriving at 10:51am. We arrived at Gare de Lyon train station. We took the metro to our hotel - the Marriott Rive Gauche Hotel. Our hotel is really nice - probably the best place I've stayed on the trip to date. We dropped our bags and headed out to explore Paris.

Our first move was to take the metro up to the Charles de Gaulle Etiole stop. We toured the Arc de Triomphe and walked down the scenic Champs-Elysees. I learned more about the Arc today. Really interesting. It was commissioned in 1806 to celebrate the victories of the Great Army. It was completed in 1836. It stands 50 meters high and 45 meters wide. A flame is rekindled each evening at 6:30pm near the tomb of the unknown soldier - laid to rest here in 1921.

We then walked across a couple of the bridges spanning the Seine River. My favorite bridge is Port Alexandre - it has four huge statues on each corner of the bridge. We walked down to Invalides - which houses the tomb of Napolean. This huge courtyard shaped building with a bronze tower was built in 1671. Louis XIV decided to build a 'royal hostel that would be large enough to house all 'officers, old, crippled, and retired alike'. Today, visitors to Invalides can see the Musee de l' Armee (full of weapons, uniforms, and equipment) and the Musee des Plans-Reliefs (scale models of various French towns and monuments).

From here, we walked over to the park area (Champ de Mars) that leads to the Eiffel Tower. The weather today was incredible. This resulted in some unbelievable pictures of the Eiffel Tower with blue sky and white clouds in the background. We grabbed some food and waited in line to take the trip to the top. We waited for an hour before entering. Although the wait was long, it was worth it. Seeing the city from the top was impressive - especially considering the great skyline from today.

We next walked down and took a 1 hour boat ride up/down the Seine. Nice, relaxing - and only 11 euro. We cruided up past Notre Dame and came back down to our starting point. It was an audio guided tour. We got to sit out on the deck of the boat, soak in the sun, and grab more pictures.

Departing the boat, we walked up to the Trocadero (look-out point for the Eiffel Tower), arriving right at 10pm when the lights first came on at the Eiffel Tower. This was awesome. I've never seen this before - in person or on TV/pictures. The lights were blinking for 5 minutes before they turned on fully. Perhaps this occurs every evening. I would recommend this site to anyone.

We took the metro back to the area of our hotel - had some pizza and beer at a local pub - then called it a day. Great first day in Paris.