September 5, 2015

Our week in Paris is coming to an end.  We have had a very nice, relaxing week just hanging out in Paris and trying to give ourselves some downtime.  The last couple of days, we have visited Versailles, gone to the light show at the Eiffel Tower, then we spent today climbing to the 2nd viewing level of the tower.  Yesterday, we took the train out to Versailles and toured the entire palace area.  We had downloaded the Rick Steves audio tour, so we used that to make our way through the palace and out in the gardens.  It was kind of an overcast, yucky day, but it only sprinkled for a few minutes, so we got lucky.  The entire grounds are amazing and beautiful.  I think that it I could pick anywhere to live, this might be it!

We got back into Paris and came over to the Eiffel Tower to watch the light show.  We weren’t sure how busy it got, so we came plenty early to get a good spot right in the center.  Hayden had fun taking pictures where he was holding up the tower.  lol

We got into our front and center spots and took pictures from light all the way to dark and then with the sparkly lights on at 9:00 pm.  You can see the progression of it getting darker in the pictures below…

After a “late” night last night (getting home at 10:00 pm is a late night for us these days), we slept in this morning before heading back to the tower again to go up to the top.  We decided to be adventurous and climb to the top instead of taking the elevator (plus it only costs about half the price!).  There were a total of 688 stairs to get up to the 2nd viewing platform.  You are not aloud to walk all the way up to the top for safety reasons and there was a crazy, huge line for the elevator, so we decided to just stop at the 2nd viewing platform.  We read that this is the best view anyway, so to say $18 and at least 2 hours, we were fine with that!  The view was beautiful and we could see the entire city.  We walked around for a while before heading back down.  From there, we came back to the apartment where we are now getting all packed up.

From Paris, we will be heading up to Normandy tomorrow for a few days.  We are planning to do a Normandy tour tomorrow and then go out to St Michele on Tuesday.  We will leave on Wednesday and go to Puy du Fou, this really awesome medieval town with jousting, chariot races, falconry shows, etc.  It should be pretty awesome and Hayden (and Adam) are super excited.