Friday was Arc de Triomphe and Eiffel Tower Day. Very touristy I know, but that’s why we came to France, not for the coffee.
The Arc de Triomphe was built to honour those who fought and died for France in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. You’ll find the details on Wikipedia. Napoleon was pretty good at all things triumphal and showy.
Mainly these days it is a tourist magnet and the centrepiece of the world’s most chaotic roundabout. Twelve roads in, no marked lanes and the most ridiculous dog’s breakfast you’ve ever seen, yet it works. I’d love to have a go, but I’d need to be fairly drunk to ensure I was in sync with the rest of Paris traffic.
So we went up the top and took heaps of pictures, a selection of which is below. It’s surprisingly roomy up the top, from the ground it looks like it’s only the size of an apartment building balcony. But it holds a handy number of tourists without us getting in each other’s photos.
The traffic chaos certainly isn’t helped by tourists taking photos. A lot wander not the roads, or into the roundabout to take photos. I’m amazed (and more than a little disappointed) that a lot aren’t run over.
But enough of that. Where is that bit of ironmongery Monsieur Eiffel put together?
It’s not very hard to find, you can see it from just about anywhere in the city. We visited it in 2015 and you’d expect it to be exactly the same. It’s not. Or at least the surrounding area isn’t the same. They’ve built walls around the base to manage tourists in the area.
You used to be able to roam around and under the tower, and line up for ridiculously long periods of time for overpriced tickets to the viewing platforms, as for any good tourist attraction. Now you’ve got to buy tickets to even get near the thing. Jokes on them though, the freaking thing is that big everyone can still get good photos from 500m away. Photos like these.
That’s enough touristy things for one day.
Stephen and Michelle
Leave a Reply