THE TOWER EIFFEL AT NIGHT

Our View

One of the most amazing sights we’ve seen so far was the Tower Eiffel at night.  We started the evening with a cruise of the Siene which was wonderfully relaxing and kept us off our feet.  Then we dined outside at Chez Francis Restaurant.  We had the most incredible view of The Tower Eiffel.  Rex and I kept switching seats at every course so that both of us could enjoy the view.  The Parisians must have thought we were crazy, but we didn’t care.  The experience was amazing.  I kept saying, “I am having dinner while looking at the Eiffel Tower.”   Ahhhh, life is good.

We then waited in an extremely long line to go to the top of the tower.  It was all worth it.  We got to the 2^nd level via the lift, and then queued in another line for about 45 minutes to get to the top of the tower.  We all felt like sardines in the lifts, people were pushing to get on board.

Once at the top, we had the most spectacular views of Paris.  Then in order to get back down we needed to queue in another super long line, however I think Rex and I cut some of the line by accident.  There was a large gap in the line, so we thought it was the end and hoped in.  I don’t believe anyone even noticed. 

Once back on the second level, we decided to walk the rest of the way down (all 1,665 steps).  Needless to say, we were exhausted and didn’t want to walk the 4 blocks back to the metro station at midnight.  We tried to hail a cab, but we didn’t have any luck.  We ended up walking back to the metro station that connected us to the metro that would get us back to our hotel.  Once at the connecting station we were informed that our train was closed and that we could take a bus.  We arrived topside at the bus stop tired and sleepy.  After sitting at the bus stop for few minutes, we noticed a digital sign that read, " only to discover that the “service terminee.” This was obvious, it meant there would be NO MORE bus service at that stop for the night.   WHAT?  How are we suppose to get back to our hotel?  AND where is our hotel?

We tried hailing a cab again – ha, even the cab that didn’t have passengers wouldn’t pick us up.  We must have looked scary or something.  We finally asked a local how to get to the station near our hotel.  We had only walked in the wrong direction for at block or so.  Now that we are retracing our steps, we were exhausted.  Finally we came to an intersection that was familiar.  We were back at our hotel safe and sound at 1:30 a.m.