13th September - Eiffel Tower / Arc De Triomphe

13.9.10  - Eiffel Tower / Arc De Triomphe / Champs-Elysees

We woke up early to catch the bus to the Eiffel Tower as our booked time slot was leaving at 9.30am. We caught the bus from our Apt to the Trocadero stop about 1/2 hour away. From the Trocadero stop you have an amazing view of the Eiffel Tower, so dad took some photos and we walked down to the entrance.  We already had booked tickets, so we didn’t have to join the huge queue! After the security check we walked up the stairs to catch the lift. I was hoping to walk up, but you had to be at a certain weight and height, plus it would of taken much longer and more expansive. We got off at the 2nd level and what a great view of Paris we had.  Dad took heaps of photos! We had to purchase another ticket to go right to the top, so we joined the queue and up we went, a bit chilly up there but awesome!  We stayed up the top for about 1/2 hour, there was a list of how far away every country was from the Eiffel Tower and Sydney was 16,962 kms away.  We made our way back down to earth and walked to the Arc De Triomphe. This is situated in the middle of the largest roundabout in the world and 12 avenues of Paris come off it! The most famous is Champs-Elysees, which is a long, long street with big trees lining both sides of the road and an awesome 2 story adidas shop that I didn’t want to come out of.  Plus many cafes and shops and lots of people and cars.  

We took the tour of the Arc De Triomphe (Arch of Triumph) that Napoleon commissioned to be built to commemorate his victories in battle. They started building it in 1806 but it wasn’t completed until 1836 as he kept losing his battles. Inside the arch was information about the different wars and enemies that had marched through it. Mainly the Nazis from Germany. We climbed up the 284 steps of the spiral staircase and had a fantastic view of the 12 avenues that lead off the roundabout.  After coming down, we walked down the Champs-Elysees, stopped off at maccas for an ice-cream and headed to the adidas shop, it was great, they had machines that tested your fitness, how high you could jump etc, and great soccer gear.  We walked home and went to the Mirama chinese restaurant for dinner, that was just next door to our apartment, the food was really nice.  We had an early night as mum and dad surprised us by telling us we were going to Disneyland in the morning.  We checked out the Disney website to see what rides we wanted to go on first, then went to bed.