The Scroop's European Holiday: Day 16 Paris:

We wake up to a chilly day and walk back down to the open top bus stop because today we are back on the Grand Tour. We are going to go back up the Eiffel Tower for another look. We get off one stop early at the Trocadero so we can walk down. The view from here across the fountains down to the Eiffel Tower and beyond to the Parc du Champ de Mars is sensational. We continue on down and get in line for a ticket to go up the tower. This time we are walking up the stairs. It is much cheaper and the line is shorter. This only allows us up to the second level but that’s ok because I still haven’t mustered up the courage to go to the top. I case I forgot to mention it it’s a long way up!! (and I’m still a girl). We are not sure this was a wise move as there are 688 stairs to level 2. We get up to level one and take a break for coffee and a muffin and a look around while the sun is out. We continue on and make it to level 2 and the view during the day is just as impressive as it was at night. If we could just do something about these stinking tourists it would be perfect (this is our second time up so we don’t qualify as tourists anymore....we’re virtually locals now). We make our way down and walk back up to the Trocadero stop and catch the bus back to the apartment. As this is our last day we do a bit of packing before getting out for our last Paris dinner. We thought St. Germain looked good so we decide to walk and have a look for a half decent restaurant. Bad move, nothing but rubbish around here but that seems to be our experience in Paris. We’re not sure were all these amazing restaurants are hiding. We find an ‘el cheapo pasta joint but we are all very tired and pretty much eat and run. We get out of the restaurant and it’s persisting down. My walk home and a crepe along the way has gone out the window as we have to catch a cab home. Another delightful cab ride with another delightful cabbie. Not exactly what we were expecting for our last night in Paris but that’s ok because it’s been a pretty good week.

Tyler’s comments: Today we went on the open top bus for the 4^th time in Paris. We used a map to know where we were going on the bus. The bus took us to the Eiffel Tower. To get to the second floor it took 688 stairs. There are 2,500,000 rivets in the whole Eiffel Tower. When we got to the first floor we had a snack. I had half a donut and half a croissant. When we got to the bottom my legs were aching like mad.

Mia’s comments: Today we went on the open top bus tour. It didn’t rain today. Then we got to see the Eiffel Tower. We went to the 2^nd floor and it took 1376 stairs to go up and down. My legs were really sore after that!!

FACT- Rivets 2,500,000! WOW!

We were hungry when we got to the first floor so we stopped and had a snack. Then we went to second floor and took a couple of pictures and went down again.