Paris: The Birthday Trip - Day 2 (part 1)

Sunday, July 28, 2013

We woke about 1 a.m., or so we thought, somewhat disappointed that we hadn't slept through the night. Then Denise noticed the glow of daylight around the curtains and we looked out to discover a beautiful sunny day had already begun. My watch had stopped! We quickly showered and went to the dining room for breakfast and, after consulting our maps, Denise outlined the day's itinerary and we set off.

Our first stop was the Eiffel Tower.

Our hope had been to beat the crowds but that was not to be. The wait for the elevator to the top was already 45 minutes and was rapidly getting worse. We're not enthusiastic about spending our holidays standing in line so Denise was disappointed - until she found the entrance to the stairway. Yikes! Fortunately my injured ankle gave me a reasonable excuse to sit this one out which meant that I was going to have some energy for the remainder of the day. I don't know where her passion for stairs comes from (the same thing happened in Montmartre). More than fifteen steps and I'm looking for an elevator.

Anyway, off she went to climb the 681 steps to the second level (see picture below top-left) where she took the other photos seen below. She also took a photo of the 650th step to mark her 65th birthday. Oddly, other climbers then began to take the same photograph. She assumed that the others hadn't noticed the numbers on the steps. We were to see this phenomenon at other locations (tourists noticing what others are photographing and moving in to look at and take a picture of something that someone else thought was important enough to photograph).