Eiffel Tower

 While in Paris, we ran into the Eiffel Tower several times just navigating and we used it many times as a navigation tool. the tower is HUGE! You really cannot get a feeling for how big it is until you see it for yourself, in person.

 One day, we wanted to go and see the tower and go to the top of it so we set out and walked to it. We didn't really need the map too much, we just followed the Sine river a bit and went towards the tower. It is so big, that it is hard to tell how far you are from it.

It gets hard to fit the tower into the camera view. Photographers say "50mm" zoom length is about the field of vision as the human eye sees. This is my camera at about 50 mm zoom approaching the tower.

The lines were long and going to the top of the tower would not be free for us like most museums were. We still got a discount for being young, European Union students. We decided to brave the lines and be tourists for a bit.

 They had some neat tickets to go to top of the Eiffel Tower. ....

After you got in line for the lift to go halfway up the tower they ripped off one corner.

 The lift is powered by these big hydraulic cylinders that move around. They used to be powered manually by people pulling. That would be a tough job.

Up on the second floor. You can already see a lot of the city, but Paris is a GIANT city, like New York City.

Just like the lines below, it was crowded on the tower with tourists from all around the world. Just like the Duomo in Florence, everyday there are new people from all over the world seeing the tower for the first time. It is kind of a strange environment and when you think about how many people go through here and how many people have visited the Eiffel tower, it is really crazy. There are probably photos on the internet from every possible angle and at every time of day of this tower, yet everyone (even me) feels the need to take a few photos of their own here. This is a feeling and phenomenon that interests me and I explored it a bit making some art. Thats a different blog post though.

 As we made our way around in a long snaking line to catch the elevator to the top we saw all around. Here there were soccer (football) games going on. Europe loves their football (like the rest of the world). Even America loves football but not everyone in America loves soccer.

 Looking up at the tower. At night, every hour, the tower sparkles for about 5 minutes. You can see the big flasher bulbs that blink really bright all over the tower.

Both sides are used up, were going to the top!

From the top of "La Tour Eiffel", you can see alot of Paris. It was is really pretty up there and breezey too. We were a bit chilly in just our sweaters.

You can sort of see how the streets of France are a bit like a tangle of spiderwebs when you compare them to neat grid of New York City. This makes navigating Paris pretty fun and it seems like traffic moves in every direction at the intersections.

You can see the massive shadow of the tower from this angle. I wonder how big the shadow gets at sunset?

It was very crowded on the top of the tower and a little difficult to get a photo because everyone wanted to do something on top of the tower.

The big tourist barge looks like a toy boat floating down the Sine river from this high up.

Here you can see the park that is in front La Tour Eiffel and in the distance you can see a large tower. That Large tower is next to the Paris "Montparnasse" main train station. A large metro station is below the train station, regional trains typically depart from the middle/ground floor and from the top floor of the station, the fast trains depart. It is a really neat system, I really like trains.

Here is the office of Gustave Eiffel. As you can see, he built an office and apartment atop the Eiffel Tower. Pretty neat!

There's Gustave and Thomas Edison.

Paris has many parks throughout the city. That looks to be a very large one with a big hill in it. We didn't get to go to that park.

Looking towards the sun

As we headed down to the floor just below the top, (there was an indoor part) we noticed all of these markings showing which direction major monuments were from around the world and how big they were in comparison to the Eiffel Tower (the blue spotted line). Here is the Duomo in Florence. It's huge but not nearly as tall as the Eiffel Tower. I think if the Eiffel Tower was in Florence, you would be able to see it from all around Tuscany! That would be neat to go to the top of! I remember being amazed when I went to the top of the bell tower in Florence, I cannot imagine going to the height of the Eiffel Tower in Florence.

The Empire State Building is even taller than the Eiffel Tower.

The Washington Monument

This is a photo of one of the first radio transmissions. The Eiffel Tower was the first radio tower.

Speaking of lots and lots of people, look at how worn these stairs are! I saw the same thing in the stone steps at the Louvre.

Heading down the tower. Look at the lines below.

You can see the lights as you walk down the stairs to go down. We could have taken a lift down but we decided to take the stairs. These lights flash every hour at night.

Here is Ali I'm front of a sparkling Eiffel Tower.

I had some fun taking photos of the tower.

Here I am in front of the sparking tower.

Ali under the tower at night.

There really aren't any restaurants with good views of the tower  there is a nice park though. Ali and I got pizza and took it to the tower where we sat down on the ground right in front of the tower to eat in front of the sparkling tower. It was great!

You can see the spotlight that shines so bright and spins around the French sky.

On the way back from the tower the night we are in front of it, we caught it sparkling again as we were passing The Armory. It was a really good night in Paris!