J&J's European Adventure

21 July

Paris, France - Day 5

We hustled over to the Eiffel Tower early to make reservations for tomorrow night. Everything to do with this structure seems to involve standing in a line, but we got our tickets relatively quickly. Women who we presumed to be Gypsies kept coming up and asking if we speak English. Rather than listen to their pitch, I found it to be very effective to say "I don't understand" in Italian. Fortunately, none of them spoke Italian and they moved swiftly along to the next target.

The whole area is littered with peddlers hawking assorted trinkets. There are two types: strolling peddlers carrying key rings, etc, and those who spread a cloth on the ground to set up their displays. The latter must be more illegal than the first, since cops on bikes appear from time to time, causing the peddlers to scoop up their displays and flee wildly in all directions. It's rather like watching a little kid run through a flock of pigeons in a city square.

The Paris Fire Dept was doing some sort of high-angle rescue drill, so we watched the firemen rappelling from the tower for a while. It brought back memories of the good-old-days. We killed most of the day just strolling around and doing a bit of shopping. We visited the Rue Cler and had lunch at a Greek café, and visited the Montparnasse Tower and associated shopping area. I broke down and bought new insoles for my shoes. We took a train to Versailles late in the afternoon and looked at the amazing gardens.

Daily miles: 10.85

Expenses: 58.48€ (Eiffel reservations, food)