Bastille Day - July 14th - France's national holiday celebrating the French revolution and the fall of the Bastille prison. We kicked off the French holiday with an early start for breakfast and waiting in line for the Eiffel Tower to open. We weren't able to buy tickets online for the tower, which was our original plan, but the website listed Bastille Day as one of the least busy days of the summer so we decided to try it out. What a good move! We got there around 8:30am for its 9am opening and there were already about 30 people waiting to go through security. There's a gate on the other side too - the Seine side; we were on the Champ de Mars side - so when they opened, there was a longer line to wait in to buy tickets. We waited about 20 minutes, but when we got to the ticket office, they told us that we were in the line for the elevator only, and we wanted to climb the steps to the 2nd level before taking the elevator to the top. So over to the south pillar we went, where there was absolutely no line! It's 628 steps up to the 2nd level of the tower, but we stopped at the first level to admire the view and look at the displays about the tower's history and construction. The tower, designed and built by Gustave Eiffel for the 1889 World's Fair, was only supposed to stand for 20 years and then be torn down, but it became such a symbol of the city that it stayed. Eiffel was a magnificent engineer, conducting many experiments, often using the tower to test wind resistance and gravity. He designed the tower's wrought iron to withstand the wind, allowing the structure to sway up to 60cm/23in - within the last decade, Paris had a storm that buffeted the tower with 213km/hr winds (132mph) and it only swayed 10cm from vertical, even after 127 years! The view was even better from the 2nd level, where there used to be a spiral staircase leading all the way to the top, but it was dismantled several years ago and the pieces auctioned off. From there, we bought our elevator tickets to the top observation deck - what a view! You can see all of Paris, 360 degrees around. Just stunning! We could pick out many of the locations we'd already visited, like the Arc de Triomphe and Sacre Coeur. By about 10:45, we were ready to head back down, but I kept looking at the Arc de Triomphe because that's where the huge military parade begins on Bastille Day at 11am, and I was thinking maybe we should stay to see if we could see it. We also knew there was a flyover of military planes to start the parade so I started fiddling with my phone to see if I could find out when that would happen. Suddenly Margo starts shaking my arm, almost hard enough for me to drop my phone, yelling "You're missing it! You're missing it!" I looked up and got my camera started quickly enough to video the 5 fighter jets streaking over the Arc de Triomphe, trailing blue, white, and red smoke in honor of the French flag! They were followed shortly thereafter by all of the sets of military aircraft we had seen a few days before on their practice run for the parade. Just think - if we had gotten in the correct line to buy our tickets on the ground, we would have been on our way down already and would have missed it!
So, what to do with the rest of the day? Hard to believe it, but we were running out of things on our list of "to-do". Dad and Ellen hadn't gone with us when we went to Montmartre and Sacre Coeur, and we were interested in going back again, so that's where we went. We stopped for lunch before getting on the funiculaire to take us up the slope, and then we split up - Dad and Ellen heading for Sacre Coeur and Margo and I heading for the Place de Tertre, an artists' plaza nearby. When we had visited earlier in the week, one of the artists had approached us and wanted to sketch us, but we didn't have enough time. After thinking about it some more, we thought that would be a really unique souvenir to bring home with us, so we went looking for someone to draw us. It didn't take long to meet Sandro, a Swiss artist and art instructor, who wanted to sketch us together in pastels. We agreed and chatted with him throughout the process - he asked us if we were able to be married in the States, and we told him that we were, and then he told us about how long he had been working in Paris doing sketches, when we wasn't teaching in Geneva. I'll be honest - he was a great guy, but the picture didn't really look anything like us, but we bought it anyway - it's a good story to tell. Then we checked out some of the shops and other artist stalls before meeting back up with Dad and Ellen. We decided to make it an early trip home because there were fireworks for Bastille Day at the Eiffel Tower at 11pm, and we wanted to relax a little before then.
When it was time to go find a spot to watch the fireworks, we got to see just how many people had the same idea - no surprise there. We figured if we could find a spot on the esplanade along the Seine, we'd have a good vantage point, and we were right. The crowd was joyful and happy, with some of them singing the Marseillaise to pass some time, and many of them drinking - there is apparently no such thing as an open container law in Paris. Shortly after 11, the lights illuminating the tower switched to blue, white, and red, and we knew the show was about to start. Lasting 35 minutes, this was one probably the best fireworks display I've ever seen in person. The Eiffel tower was lit in ever-changing colors while fireworks shot out in all directions from the tower itself and from a barge on the Seine. So much color and spectacle! Once it was over, the crowd dispersed in a very orderly fashion, stacking their trash by the receptacles and walking home or to the Metro. This was the latest night we'd had in Paris, and I was definitely ready to go to sleep by the time we got back to the flat!
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