Europe Trip 2015 - Day Eleven

Breakfast in Jardin du Luxembourg after drinks and croissants at a street cafe. The missus wasn't impressed with the white metal paths and grass that you weren't allowed on. Found a bench to sit on for our breakfast and then eight ponies were tied up next to us. I shared my apple with two of them.

Croissants and drinks

Road with a view

I love the dinky traffic lights for drivers at the front - no lights on the far side of the intersection

Jardin du Luxembourg

Keep off the grass

Spot the tourists

More grass to keep off

Hungry visitor

Talk about in your face

 Statues abound in the park and there was one of the Statue of Liberty too. Lots of joggers and people doing tai chi. Before heading out for the day we purchased some hideously expensive sunscreen from a pharmacy.

Statue of Liberty in Jardin du Luxembourg

Fill 'er up - electric car "refueling" station

 Walked to Notre Dame Cathedral from our place which took only about 10 minutes. We were quite well situated in the Latin Quarter which turned out to be a good location.

Notre Dame Cathedral

Busy Seine

National Assembly building

Travelator that seems to go on forever 

 Wandered through a lot of back streets in the general direction of the Eiffel Tower. After a couple of hours of walking and coming to the realisation that we still had lots of walking to do the decision was made to rest and then catch the metro. Wise choice. Managed to locate a seat in the shade for a well earned rest near the Trocadero which was our meeting place for a tour. Grabbed a bite to eat.

Met Lindsay, from Philadelphia, for our City Wonders tour. She gave us lots of history regarding the tower - it was up against 106 other designs in a competition - and never rant out of anything to inform us of.

One of the first views of the Eiffel Tour

Le Eiffel Tour

We're about the same height

 Skipping the line, part of the tour package, was a good idea as the queue was still long. Our tour group only had 12 people but there were a couple of tours being run concurrently. Stayed on the second level until we had walked right around and then the tour was complete. By this time most people were itching to reach the summit. Our tickets were valid for the summit so no queuing for that either. Perhaps the waiting time for the elevator to the top took longer than the tour! Some kids in the line, rich Americans by the look, were quite annoying. Other kids were well behaved but not that many were actually on the tower.

Nice view from the top but sunny and windy. Long queue to get back down to the second level, by elevator only, before we took the stairs to the bottom. Haggled with one of the souvenir sellers for a large replica tower from 25 euros to 20 to 19. I was going to offer 15 euros but the missus settled on 19. Back at the Trocadero station I questioned another seller for the same souvenir and had offered it for 20 euros and then dropped to 15 as I walked away. Damn. Arrived home about 8:30 pm needing a rest.

View of the Champ de Mars

View from up atop the Eiffel Tower

Les Invalides

I've grown a bit

Look at the ants below

Plenty of steel work