We made plans for lunch with an old and new friend (more on that later) and Emma made it clear she wasn't done with her shopping, so we decided to walk over to the Luxembourg Gardens, where we were meeting Bev, and pay more attention to the shops this time. We didn't find anything inspiring so we sat in the garden and watched the children with sailboats.
Adorable, n'est ci pas?
We met Bev at the garden entrance and she knew us right away. Good thing I've been posting so many pictures! Bev was one of the members of the CompuServe Women's Forum (originally Women's Wire) about 20 years ago, when I found my first online community. A few stalwarts have migrated from there to to a Delphi Forum and now to FB. These women have a special place in my life. I haven't met all of them in person yet - someday!
Bev lives about 30 km outside of Paris with her husband, two donkeys and an unspecified number of cats. It was great to meet her in person after all these years. The couscous was delicious and the talk was even better.
We planned to visit the Cluny Museum after lunch, and found that it's closed on Tuesdays. Emma suggsted that this gave us more time to shop. We walked up to L'Opera and looked at the shops in that area, and then went over to Printemps, where Emma went into raptures at the decor of the building.
Unfortunately, she wasn't nearly as excited by the clothes. We did find a store full of cellphone cases and eventually took ourselves back at the Opera and a store called Mango, where she had more success with clothing.
We then took the Metro back to our neighborhood to change for dinner. Someone (Anne Gauthier? Susana MacLean? Maria Wilson?) told us that if we made reservations for a meal at the Eiffel Tower restaurant, we could skip the lines for lift tickets. We had dinner at 58 Tour Eiffel. We did indeed skip the line for the elevator at first. More about that later.
We weren't in time to get a reservation for a "view table". Pro tip: they're all view tables.
OK, you can't see the view in that shot, but he's pretty cute.
The food was excellent and the experience was really outstanding, including the cruise-ship-style photographer who came around to the tables. We bought four pictures. I know it's amazingly touristy. It was the Eiffel Tower. We were all in.
slightly blurry phone copy of one of the pictures. Of course we bought it.
Have I ever mentioned that I have a fear of heights? Well, I do. When your kid says "I want to go up the Eiffel Tower", though, you go up the Eiffel Tower.
Eeek. Those are my feet on the left and Emma's at the bottom of the photo, looking down through the glass at the people on the plaza below.
Pro tip #2: Meals at the first floor restaurant do not automatically include lift tickets above the first floor. You can purchase tickets for the summit on the second floor, but you can't purchase tickets for the second floor on the first floor. Too complicated? I'll make it simple. We had to climb the stairs from the first floor to the second floor. That's somewhere around 350 steps.
My feet hurt. What you can't see in the shot above is that Emma wore four-inch wedges. "It's worth the pain", she said.
The view from the second floor was even more compelling than the first.
Pro tip #3: Download the Eiffel Tower app so you know what you're looking at.
Once we made it to the second floor, we queued up and waited...and waited...to purchase tickets for the top. There's not much space up there, and they don't sell you tickets until there's room. We finally made it onto the lift and all the way up...
Emma said "The cameras don't do it justice". She was right.
Didn't stop me from trying.
Luckily, they didn't check tickets on the way down. The lift systems are separate - there's a funicular that runs up the legs of the tower to the second floor, and then an elevator up the center to the top. More queuing, but eventually we made it back to ground level.
All told it was a five-hour adventure into the heart of tourist-land and it was totally worth it.
Tomorrow: Versailles! A demain.
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