That’s One Big Tower
3:01 PM, 9-4-06
So the Eiffel Tower. It really takes seeing the tower to truly realize it. It’s just so big. I’d seen pictures, of course, but I’d never really comprehended the immensity of the great steel creature. (At least, I think it’s steel…) As I had wandered Paris, it had loomed in the distance, as if it were some kind of embodiment of modernity watching over the antiquity of Paris. From a distance, it had not appeared particularly humungous. Stepping out from a street to find it rising over me was another matter. And it was indeed beautiful. Originally, Parisians hated the tower. They never wanted it built and wanted it removed after it was built. I had some doubt whether something of steel beams could be beautiful and magnificent, but seeing it squelched all reservations. It was beautiful—big and beautiful.
I met Ashley (the girl I met in Edinburgh) under the tower at around seven. There was some doubt as to whether we’d manage to find each other, as we’d not actually spoken since Edinburgh. A few minutes after seven though, we connected and began catching up on all the things we’d been up to. She’d had quite the whirlwind tour of Paris, seeing so many sights that it even put me to shame. However, neither of us had been up to the Eiffel Tower yet, so we decided to do that.
We decided to go to the very top of the tower. I mean, if you’re going to go all the way to France, why would you only go halfway up the Eiffel Tower—really. So we took the two elevators up, giving us a great view of the city and the tower. The view was nothing—nothing—compared to actually being at the top. We went to the top observation deck that looked over the city in every direction. It’s really amazing. Not even the tallest of Paris’ buildings can compare to the height. A few of the larger skyscrapers might challenge maybe a third of the tower’s height…maybe. I went up the sky tower in Auckland, New Zealand, and I’m not sure how the heights of the two buildings compare, but it doesn’t really matter. Why? Because the Eiffel Tower has a certain inherent beauty and romance that such sky towers will never have.
We stayed up at the top for an hour, maybe more, taking all manner of pictures. Moreover, it was late enough that the sun had begun to set, descending down toward Paris and setting the city alight with rays of gold and red. This was one of the more beautiful sunsets I’ve seen—perhaps it was where I was. The sky seemed to burn like a bed of hot coals, glowing red and orange and yellow between the clouds until the sun would sink a little lower and ignite more glowing coals. And then, even as darkness spread across Paris, the city ignited with all manner of colored lights—pinks, blues, greens, and of course yellow. Paris, you see, consists almost entirely of white buildings, so when the sun strikes it or the streetlights are lit, the glow gives the city seems to glow almost as of its own volition. It was an amazing and illuminating experience.
That was, until I lost my camera. Actually, I took this fairly in stride. What happened was I left my camera out while I was looking at a map of the city. I forgot it was sitting out and then went up to the observation deck. I was only on the observation deck for a minute before I realized that I’d left the camera sitting below. When I returned down, it was gone. I went back up and told Ashley that “I hope you’re taking a lot of pictures because I don’t have any.” I’d been downloading my pictures with some consistency, so I wasn’t too concerned at their loss. My digital camera, however, is more a video camera than anything else and I was a little upset about the loss of the videotape in it. Nevertheless, I was not about to let this ruin such a wonderful experience. I remained cheerful and optimistic and decided that I’d check with the tower information desk when I returned to the bottom just in case someone found it and turned it in.
And someone did. Talk about affirming my faith in humanity—somebody had apparently turned the camera in only seconds after I’d left it behind because they were concerned it would be stolen. Now, the top of the Eiffel Tower is a crowded place filled with perhaps a hundred or more other tourists. Needless to say, this was a truly amazing gesture.
So now I felt a little better. Ashley and I ventured off to one of the restaurants near the tower for some dinner. I had a chicken dish that was quite good, albeit a bit expensive. We split a bottle of wine and by the time we finished it, evening had slipped into night and it was quite late. We split a taxi back to our respective places and made plans to meet in the morning to head to Versailles.
I forced myself awake at around 7:45 AM. Ashley and I wanted to get to Versailles relatively early, around when it opened, though delays in catching the subway and train put this goal out of sight and mind. We reached Versailles instead around 10:00 and by then, the place was swarming with tourists (of which I tend to exclude myself because there are tourists and then there are tourists; most of these were tourists). For those who don’t know, Versailles is a city just outside of Paris. It features Louise XII’s enormous and beautiful palace that was constructed in the 18th century (I think…).
This palace was enormous, beautiful and almost unearthly. It’s hard to imagine the type of money and effort and craftsmanship that went into constructing such a thing. Sure, castles and skyscrapers take vast quantities of materials and manpower, but there is definitely a quality to palaces that makes them seem almost too beautiful to exist. Ashley and I started our exploration of the palace taking a audio-guided tour of the staterooms. This path included a walk through a high-arched cathedral, an opera house (made entirely of wood! Every part!), and the bedrooms, offices, and royal halls of the French monarchy. There were so many paintings and gold and silver décor that it’s really difficult to convey what this experience was like. Walking through the palace was like stepping back into history to a time where the beauty of something was more than just an image. Beauty was a way of life, an experience, and the French monarchs and nobility drank everything in like it was wine. Walking around and seeing all this, it was almost as if I could see the people still in these halls that so powerfully reflected their image and way of life. I could see balls and masques. Gatherings of the court. Events of the state, inviting rulers and politicians from around the world. It was all so visible in a place so potent in appearance. For those who don’t know, it was Louise XII’s grandson and his wife that were later publicly executed during the French Revolution. I suppose it shows that the higher one is, the farther there is to fall.
Versailles was not solely about the inside of the palace. Louise XII commissioned dozens of fountains, all fed by water pressure stored near the palace. The gardens housing these fountains were equally amazing. The estate was huge. Ashley and I spent three hours just walking around, checking out the fountains and garden designs. The fountains only go off at certain times of the day, and let me say, it’s worth it to go at that time! Like the inside of the palace, it’s almost too beautiful to believe. All around the garden, at every turn you take, there is another fountain, shooting five, ten, twenty feet in the air. And these fountains have been going for over two hundred years. Talk about an engineering achievement. I suppose I’ll see something like this in Rome, but those fountains are in the city, and I found the combination of the French Gardens and fountains to have a particular ascetic appeal. The gardens were so big and confusing that we actually got lost on a number of occasions. There wasn’t really anywhere you could go, but the hedgerows definitely kept you a bit confused as to where you are with respect to everything else.
Let me say something about the tourists at this place. Now, I consider myself reasonably tolerant toward my fellow tourists, but this place really challenged that. I was saying in an earlier blog how the English were so skilled at queuing and moving around, almost as if it were some sixth sense. Well, I have to say that tourists, on the whole, seem to lack an inherent understanding of this concept. I mean, how hard is it to be aware of the people around you? Not that hard. But you’d think it was bloody rocket science for some people. I can’t say how many times I got squished, pushed, bumped, or cut in front of. It was almost as if the tourists had adopted the principles of Italian driving and applied the concepts to themselves. Only for the Italians, their way of driving works. I think if I’d been a car, I’d have been totaled by the time I finished the Versailles tour. On the whole, I just tried to stay out of the way and wait until things cleared before even attempting to navigate between the rooms. I suppose this was why we should have gotten their at opening…
After Versailles, we caught the train back and picked up our stuff at Ashley’s hotel. From there, we navigated the metro (we probably isn’t fair. I should say she navigated the metro and I followed like a helpless little lamb. The whole affair confused me and there will be more to come on this in a later blog when I return to Paris. For her, the metro seemed like some kind of New Yorkian voodoo she performed that allowed her to semi-magically transport from place to place, like frickin’ star trek or something.) Anyway, we caught the evening’s last train out of Paris heading to the small city of Bayeux in Normandy (Northwestern France.) This was something Ashley’s friend had arranged before bailing on her and heading home a few weeks early. I didn’t really know what to expect, and I don’t think she did either. We had reservations in a bed and breakfast in the town and were then going to do a World War II battlefield tour the next day.
We got into Bayeux and were immediately at a bit of a loss. It was late, past nine, and the city was dark and dead. The train station appeared on the edge of town and we had nothing to help us navigate except for the directions provided by the B&B. The directions, however, were perfectly clear and guided us right to the place. Bayeux had this amazing cathedral, which Ashley told me was just like Notredame. It was illuminated beautifully at night and I found it remarkable that such a small, quaint town should have such an enormous and beautiful cathedral.
At the B&B in our bedroom, there must have been something in the air because I was totally elated. I think it was the combination of several factors. (1) Our room was beautiful (and affordable!). There was tons of space and the room was decorated in a quaint French style with old antique-looking furniture with beautiful paintings lining the walls. (2) The shower was clean! With hot water! Neither of these things is guaranteed at hostels. I took a shower and it was the best shower since I left home. (3) I was just enjoying doing something on the trip totally unexpected that seemed like it was working out really well. I’d had a great couple days, much better than if I’d spent the time around Paris alone. (4) The hostel, quite surprisingly, had Internet. This always makes me happy. (Because I’m an addict and get a fix from checking my email). All in all, things were good. We relaxed, played some music, talked (I figured out that I could use Ashley’s camera’s memory chip in my camera so I downloaded her photos as well as mine) and did some writing. We called it an early night because we had an early (and long) day ahead—a day that would turn out to be the most unexpectedly AWESOME and emotional part of my trip yet.
Tags: Eiffel Tower, Europe, France, Paris, Travel
gregbilsland
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