Friday, July 1, 2011

Day 2: Skipping a Letter Between P and R


Above you can see the queue for the Eiffel Tower's elevator 45 minutes before the place even opens. I have no idea how long this line actually is all I know is that we skipped it.

Of course, we skipped it by taking the 674 steps all the way up to the second floor of the Eiffel Tower so this method may not be for everyone. I'm in about as good a shape as a writer/nerd can be without focusing heavily on it, which means that while I was not huffing and puffing until about step 500, my calves felt as if they were being chewed by bulldogs around step 300. 

Our whole group made it to the top, however, despite having some agoraphobes and nerdy old me included into the count. The view upstairs is completely worth it, especially for a first timer in the city of light. The view stretches out for miles and you can see most of the other famous Paris monuments such as the Arc de Triomphe and and the Louvre quite easily.

Also, going down the steps is a million times easier than going up them. 

If it's the only item on your itinerary, I highly recommend taking the stairs up. The view from inside is quite different than the elevator and you get to really feel how much metal and engineering went into it when you're stepping up through the heart (or feet, I guess). If you have other things to do that day, as we did, then you may want to further consider it. We ended up exhausted by 3pm.

Also, another thing to consider is the queue, of course. The above picture was taken super early, but I took a series of pictures upon our descent of what PARTS of the queue looks like around 11am. 






After seeing that line, it becomes a bit more apparent why our professor made us trudge up the stairs in order to avoid the letter between P and R.

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