WEATHER: Beautiful 27C
HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Climbing the Eiffel Tower at night
BUMMER OF THE DAY: It’s the 2nd last day of tour
BUYS OF THE DAY: 5 key chains for 1EUR – but I didn’t buy any….
WORD OF THE DAY: - Bonjour
We checked out of our cell this morning. We had to settle the mini bar and the phone bill – yeah right! None of these luxuries in jail. I updated my FB status saying I was spending the night in jail, and I got 2 text messages and 5 FB comment's asking what I had done and was I okay!??? Have a little faith peeps! I may get into a little mischief, but to get to jail – no way!! It has never been done (some close shaves) but touchwood this doesn’t change over the trip though!
We are off to Frarnce today. No this is not a spelling mistake, the French are quite particular with the way it is said, Frarnce not F-rance, I guess with the Aussie pronunciation it somehow robs the word of the culture the French high in such high regard.
It is a big travel today. You know this when you have 2 rest stops in a travel day. We really hauled (well Pete did) some serious travel arse through Switzerland to cross into France just before lunch. We stopped at our first rest stop and the French really know how to look after their drivers! The rest stop was awesome and brand new and the toilets were free!! Italy was a BIG one for charging the use of the public toilets. Okay so it’s only .50EUR, but it is a pain, but to clean the toilets as a full time job, I would be asking for 1EUR right, I think they definitely deserve it. But we don’t have to worry about this so far in France, thanks Frenchies!!!! Oops there am me robbing the French word again. You should hear me say Merci Bercou, I think my year 8 school French teacher would roll in her grave if she could hear me now, even to my ears I sound so ochre!!! Oh well at least we are trying…..
The traffic into Paris was slow going, I wonder how Pete copes after 7.5 hours already clocked up in driving, to sit in stop start traffic is a testament to his driving. Speaking of which, on our driving city tour of Paris, we were heading to one of the busiest round-abouts in Europe, the one that circles the Arc De Triomphe. Apparently it is that busy that there is a car accident / bingle every 12 minutes and I can see why. There are no line markings and you enter the round-about at your own peril. Mark mentioned that he wouldn’t be standing up as we did a lap of the Arc De Triomphe; I was thinking how bad could it be and then the Top Gun song Highway to the Danger Zone came on and man you needed to strap yourself in and enjoy the ride. Pete aka Maverick took the round-about by STORM!!!!! It was the funniest thing I think that has happened all trip, he drove like he was doing a lap of the Melbourne Grand Prix, in a 50 seater coach mind you, with us whoop whopping!!!! As we started the next lap, Mission Impossible tune came on and we did a third lap, nearly taking out 3 scooters, 2 motorbikes and 2 taxi’s!!! It still brings a smile to my face thinking about it, my fellow Contiki-ers were just shitting themselves ( myself included ) and laughing all at the same time – it is so hard to explain it, but man it was FUNNY!!!!
After our excitement of the city tour, which from the bus can be a little frustrating, as you try and take pictures and there are 5 arms in the photo, but it was great to get an overview of Paris, I decided to put my camera away and just soak up this beautiful city and work out where we were going to go to tomorrow as we have a full day.
The highlight of the day has to be the Eiffel Tower! Our booking was for 9pm. It sounds late, but the sun had not yet set, so as we headed up the lights of Paris were going on. The same as in London and Lucerne, this time of day is amazing and you get the best of both worlds with day and night time pictures. It is a process to get up the tower. As we were in a group, we got to skip the general admission queue (thanks Contiki) to catch the large people lift to the 2nd level of the tower. We didn’t have to wait long for this as it is a double life so it carries around 100 people. So far so good, but when we got to the second level, the queue to get to the summit was not as short. The queue moves – but we were in this one for about 30 minutes to get into the next lift to take you to the top. Once at the top – it was mayhem, it was so busy, and this was at 9.30pm at NIGHT, can you imagine the height of summer, or just during the day how much busier it would get – Uggghhhhh it was bad enough tonight. In saying that, you only had to wait a few minutes to be able to get to the fence to take your photos, and with the lights now on, the city was lit up like a Christmas tree. I could think of no-where I’d rather have been – it was AMAZING!!!!! We got about 30 minutes at the top to then repeat the process to come down. We decided that we would come down the stairs to say that we had climbed down the Eiffel Tower, and to save from waiting in yet another line. This can’t be done from the summit, you still need to come back to level 2 and then come down the stairs from there. We timed it and it only took 8 minutes and 25 seconds, stopping the clock for photos and a stop at the first level where the restaurant is. It was awesome to do it this way, just to appreciate the tower, all lit up in yellow lights and soak up that we are on THE EIFFEL TOWER!!!!!!!!!! From arriving at the Eiffel Tower at 8.45pm till we had to be back on the coach at 10.45pm – we basically had 15 minutes to spare, so you do need a good few hours to it, and that was taking into account we had the quick group line. If you come to Paris, you HAVE to do the Eiffel Tower, even if it takes 5 hours, it is certainly worth the wait. I would stick with a later time though, to give you a good chance to try and beat some of the crowds.
We are in Paree, and I can see why it is called the city of love. The city’s history and buildings and bridges and food, would give the hardest of hearts a flutter. This city is AMAZING and I look forward to just walking around the streets tomorrow.
Oo La La – we are in Paris!!!!
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