Paris Day 3 - Eiffel Tower and Sacre Coeur

After a bit of a lie in and breakfast in our hotel (its included in the price... mmmm) we headed into the slightly cloudy day straight for the Eiffel Tower - our one must do activity for the weekend. During my last visit in January 1996 it was very overcast, so we didn’t climb... this time I was determined! We scoped out the situation for a few minutes and after lining up in one place for a few minutes (massive line) we found the line for the stairs - gold!! very quick and cheaper too! SO cool, we headed up the tower, step by step and reached the first floor - what a great way to see it all!!

After circumnavigating the tower, and taking a bunch of photos, we headed for the stairs to the second floor - happily the day was fining up as we climbed so the higher we got, the clearer the sky and the better the view! Again, we circumnavigated the tower and lined up for the lift that would take us to the summit. About half way to the doors of the lift (a bit of a line) we realised there was ANOTHER line to buy tickets!! I left Megan in the first line and asked the people at the start of the ticket line what was going on, the ticket office was closed??!!. At first they thought I was French (yay!) but then we sorted it out - they were American, and after a lovely chat they offered to buy our tickets for us, YAY!. They were a father and two kids (the son was in line with Megan) and we ended up spending the rest of our trip up the Tower and back down again with them, lovely family! And the dad was scared of heights, more so than Megan, so there were some giggles there!

I got some great photos from the summit - all the major Paris sites - Arc de Triomphe, Sacre Coeur, Notre Dame, Louvre...

We lunched in a cafe in Pigalle (near the Sacre Coeur, but not too near) and Megan discovered Salade de Chevre Chaud - hot goat cheese salad - she will never look back!!! As if we hadn’t experienced enough stairs today, we headed next for the Sacre Coeur. On the way we bought two dresses for me and a skirt, and a top, skirt and dress for Megan - yay the Paris purchases continue!! At the sacre coeur, amongst a million blinkin’ tourists there was an AMAZING busker who was standing on top of a pedestal on the railing (maybe 1 square metre) and doing tricks with a soccer ball - incredible - he finished his routine by climbing the lamp post and holding the ball on his foot - this is quite possibly the fittest, most coordinated guy I’ve ever seen... nice 6 pack too!

We climbed to the top of the dome of the Sacre Coeur and enjoyed the view of the city while the church bells rang for 6pm. Fantastic.

We also made, what was possibly the most important discovery of the trip so far - the grande macaroon caramel - words cannot describe this small biscuit but I can tell you we returned to this same boulangerie on the opposite side of town from our hotel on our last day to make an additional purchase! The chocolate eclairs were incredible too! "Eat cakes more often!"

Dinner left a little to be desired, but the tap water was a winner, and we retired to bed very satisfied with our jam packed day in Paris!!