From there it was on to the Eiffel Tower; we were trying to get there late so we could see the sunset and see the lights go on. It got dark in Paris after 10:00 pm...it was weird. And then everyone ate dinner at 10:00pm, too...the cafes were packed until well after 11:00pm.The Eiffel Tower was much larger than we pictured it! It was fabulous :)!
The scroll work at the base
So after dodging all the gypsies selling Eiffel Tower key chains, we paid to take the elevator to the 2nd level. There are 3 levels, but I didn't want to go to the top- I had been told the second was high enough and indeed it was (you have to pay more, the higher you go). The elevator first goes at an angle and it is completely glass so you can see the structure as you go up. It gave me a bad case of vertigo! Here are some pictures from the second floor. I guess we were only 1/3 of the way up, it seemed so high, it was hard to believe!
Picture looking up from the second level
Residences...they have these kind of courtyard areas inside.
This is the main entrance from the northwest across the Seine; we came from the park to the southeast. That is the picture below.
Notre Dame
Hotel Des Invalides
Sacre Coeur...we would go see this in a couple days
Picnickers on the lawn under the tower...it was around 9:45 at night!
At night it lights up and then sparkles every hour on the hour
Now for our journey back to the hotel. It was slightly after 10:00 PM and we got on a bus to go back. Two stops later the bus stops completely and the drivers tells us it is done for the night and we have to get off. By now it is almost completely dark, and we are not sure where we are! The driver tells us we can take the Metro instead (the Metro is the subway in Paris), there is an entrance just a few minutes walk "down that road". Ok. So we get off and start walking through a kind of creepy area, we walk for about 10 minutes and are not sure if we are in the right place...so we ask at a cafe- yes, they tell us, keep going another 10 minutes or so. At this point we realize directions are not very specific in Paris, down "that" road can mean you just go that general direction, it doesn't mean you stay on "that" specific road. And a few minutes walk can mean half an hour or more.
By this time my legs and feet are killing me, and I am trying not to freak out as we walk for another 15 minutes and still can't find the Metro. It is totally dark by now, and this area has very few cafes and very few people out. We ask at a couple more cafes and eventually find the station entrance...only it is surrounded by tons of police cars and maybe 20+ armed officers. We asked the people standing around what the deal was, they told us there was an "incident" in that Metro station. Now I am totally freaked out! Where is another entrance, we ask?
They point another direction and say it is just "a few minutes" that way. We ended up walking, in a very round about way, almost back to where we started. I think it took us over an hour (total)! So we go down into that Metro entrance, and ask the teller how to get to our hotel area. She says to take the yellow C...anything else we need to know? No, just the yellow C.
Ok, so we go down a gazillion stairs and get to the yellow C to find out this is a train (still underground, but a train), not the Metro.... with the Metro there are just two directions (with 2 tracks, they are simple) , but with this train there are four tracks and many directions!! This yellow C seems to go everywhere! There are 3-4 trains listed coming to each track, and they all have different names (like "NASH" or "FOLT") that have nothing to do with where they might be going! Sheesh! For the life of us, we cannot figure out which track to take. If it was in English, I am sure it would have made sense, but all the fine print on the signs explaining this system was more French than we knew how to get through..
So we ask a lady, who speaks fairly good English, and she says to stay on this track but wait for the 3rd train, which is in 10 minutes. Hmmm....I personally think that this first track seems to go the wrong direction...So we keep walking down the track, there are almost no people at this hour. We ask a another young guy, who is the only person we can see anywhere at this point, he says, no she was wrong....that IS the wrong direction, but he can't help us other than that! Arggh!
We wait for awhile and keep studying this insanely confusing signage trying to figure things out. We honestly could not make sense of it. Probably if we weren't so tired and confused at this point, we would have fared better. I started to wonder..."do the trains stop at a certain time?" It was about 12:30AM. Finally we came upon another young man who spoke excellent English and pointed us toward the 4th track, and told us to wait for the 2nd train...he also showed us that we had to go back up into the terminal to cross the tracks. He seemed the most confident so far, so we followed his advice. Thank goodness it was right! I fell into the train seat completely exhausted.
When we got off the train, we still had to walk another 10 minutes or so to our hotel, thankfully our hotel is in a student area, and it was still hopping. When do these people sleep, I wonder? Maybe they have to stay up for a few hours after they eat dinner at 10:00 I guess.
I think we finally got into bed at about 1:30 in the morning....
No comments:
Post a Comment