Bonjour Eiffel Tower

Ah, Paris - For the hopeless romantics, it's the ultimate city for falling in love. But for the most of us, it's also best known for the arts, unique cuisines, Moulin Rouge, more recently, the home to the French rat, Remy, in Ratatouille (Pixar animation), and of course the Eiffel Tower!

On the first day of arriving in Paris we made a beeline towards the Eiffel Tower. The tower, standing at 324 metres high was visible from a great distance and hard to miss. Like every person with access to the media, we knew what to expect from the tower. It will be no surprise to us but making this trip to see the monument in the flesh and experiencing the climb to the top completes the circle for us.

The Eiffel Tower.

On the way to the tower, we passed a multitude of street vendors selling mini Eiffels in all sizes, shapes and lighting effects. All offered to give a 'special price'. We performed some clever maneuvering around them to the base only to find a massive que waiting to climb the monument. Looks like we're not the only crazy people out there! It seems that we had 1021 steps to climb to the peak. But of course, we didn't know this as we placed ourselves in the queue. What we did know then was that we had a big climb ahead of us, and all this before lunch! Quickly buying a pricey plain hot dog from the nearest stand, we had enough sustenance to get us to the top.

On our way up!

Goodness, it's an obvious sign that I should be doing more exercise as I felt my heart beat a thousand times faster the further we climbed! Although Andy was nervous with heights, he climbed like a goat (or perhaps it was BECAUSE he was afraid of heights that pushed him along!) Either way, we persisted until we finally saw the end of the first part of the climb... the first level lookout.

Ooh la la. Spectacular blue sky with a brilliant view of the city.

The sun was setting, casting a warm glow through the cityscape.

There was a massive queue happening at the first level to get to the peak and so by the time we wound our way up to the second level, night had arrive.

The city was alight.

Tired but happy to finally have made it to the top of the Eiffel!

As far as we were concerned, climbing the Eiffel Tower is a tick in a box for us. Mission accomplished. Now to get down and grab some grub! Thank goodness for the lifts that took us all the way back to the base.

From below we had a spectacular view of the Eiffel lit with lights, we even managed to catch the light display that happens every night at certain hours.

The tower with thousands of sparkling lights.