Tour Eiffel, The Eiffel Tower
We arrived on Friday September 17, 2004.
After checking in to our hotel, the Hotel Littre, 9 Rue Littre, we immediately headed over to the Eiffel Tower. We arrived into Paris in the late afternoon, so we didn't have a whole day to explore something. But we did have enough time to figure out the metro and head on over to the Eiffel Tower. The Eiffel Tower, originally built for the 1889 World Exposition, was intended to be a temporary structure. It was, at this time, the world's tallest structure at 300 Meters. While visiting the Eiffel tower, we took advantage of the photo opportunities at the Champs de Mars. The Champs de Mars is the long, rectangular stretch of grass and fountains that reaches back from the legs of the Eiffel tower to the buildings of the Ecole Militaire, founded by Louis XV, in 1751 for Army training purposes. Napoleon was one of the Ecole Militaire's students.
The Eiffel Tower is very impressive to experience in person. It is so majestic that even the sweetest photograph cannot do it justice. It is enormous, and appears to pierce the atmosphere. The area below and surrounding the Eiffel Tower is very pleasant, and all the different angles of the Eiffel Tower are awe inspiring. This is Paris.
The line to take the elevator up the Eiffel Tower was ridiculously long. This line wrapped back and forth forever and ever. We just couldn't do it. To burn hours in this line would just take the wind out of our sails, so we decided to continue our adventure and check out more of Paris by foot on our first day. We checked out our map, and headed toward the Arc de Triomphe.
