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| Eiffel Tower - Golden Beauty. |
Traveling in Paris is not easy in any way shape or form, especially at night. For the three of us, however, we wanted to at least try and get out to see the city at night because it is said to be the most beautiful. It was decided to take the ReR back to our hotel. The ReR is an underground train system, which is
not to be confused with the Metro which runs below the ReR. On the whole I was never impressed with the
mass transit subways of Paris. They have
a grim, seedy feel, very much unlike the Tokyo ones.
I don’t know how people manage taking these trains. In Japan, the trains are on time, pulling
right up to specifically marked places on the platform. In Paris the train often shoots long past the
platform and people have to run one way or another to climb on board before
the train shoots off again. Just jumping
onto the train is a gamble, because there is a wide gap between the platform
and the vehicle itself. Then once you
are on, the train is not level, with stairs and steps up and down to areas you
can sit. I don’t know how a person in a
wheelchair, the elderly, or the injured handle this. Still the ReR was useful in getting us back
to the hotel to rest until our jetlag caught up again.
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| Musee D'Orsay |
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| Paris Lights at Night. |
We woke up at 9:45 pm or so Paris time, feeling hungry
and anticipating a short excursion for food.
My parents suggested going to see the Eiffel tower at night and I was all
for it. I’d seen the structure off in
the distance while at Notre Dame and a chance to see the sparkling tower was
something I wasn’t about to pass up. To its credit, Paris lives up to every expectation, the lights are absolutely beautiful at night and not to be missed. It has this ethereal, unearthly quality as it reflects off stone or water and hits the eye. Above all these lights, the Eiffel tower rises as a golden spire piercing the dark sky - long beams of light shooting out in each direction from the top.
Unfortunately while the tower was beautiful the area surrounding it is not. The park and environs of Paris iconic symbol are seedy at the best of times and absolutely bristling with con-artists,
pickpockets and very unsavory characters.
It’s a shame, because seeing the tower itself lit up is quite beautiful
to behold. The spidersweb of girders
and beams lends itself to the otherworldly orange glow that permeates from
floodlights that line the tower. The
whole building seems knit together out of threads of iron, to rise like hands
steepled in prayer.
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| Looking up |
When the light show begins, the tower shimmers and
sparkles like something out of a Disney movie.
It becomes bathed like in starlight, and lasts this way for a good few minutes
before fading back to the soft inner glow.
It’s a sight to behold, but again taken back by the presence of the area
around it. The hawksters watch for their chance, selling trinkets and junk that jingle like keys on a
chain.
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| Crowds at the tower, the further you went the thicker it became. |
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| Looking up from right beneath the main structure. |
They are everywhere
and anywhere, strangely every single one of them African. This is not to cast aspersions on Africans,
but about 99 percent of the hawkers I saw in France were of that decent. It’s a shame really because it lends itself
to an environment of displeasure because you are constantly assaulted by them
trying to sell you their junk. You can’t
go ten yards from refusing one, when another tries even after seeing you refuse the first.
I cannot recommend going to see the Eiffel at night as a result of the
feeling I had there. If you want to
catch the show, catch it from another venue, and not up close.
As for my parents and I, we slunk away from the Eiffel grounds to our first meal at a Parisien Café.
It was just a little place called Les Castille where we had wine, salad
and a ham and cheese sandwich. I drank
a glass, my first full glass in my lifetime, which probably astounded my
parents. I have no taste for wine unfortunately,
but I enjoyed some of the ones I had while in France. With the meal done, we concluded our first
day with another trip through the ReR to the hotel to await our next adventure.
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| Light show at the Eiffel Tower |
