Eiffel Tower

Our first full day in Paris and we all slept in until noon! That's really unusual for Rich and me, not so much for Olivia :)

Everyone having showered, it was time to forage for food.  There is a cafe a few steps from the apartment building so we went there.  Due to the heat, and that fact that it was lunch time, we all opted for salads - me a Caesar salad and Rich and Libs had Caprese salad.

Note about payments:  compared to my visits from years ago, bank cards are much more accepted than they used to be.  And here's the thing, every waiter or establishment we went to that do accept cards, has this small gizmo that fits in their pocket to run the transaction.  EVERY SINGLE ONE.  The waiter comes to the table with the gadget and the whole thing is done here -- no handing off your card and the waiter disappears with it for 10 minutes.  However, my American Express card is still not widely used so we ended up using the debit card.  If a place did take Amex, they either had a minimum charge or added an extra Euro or two to the bill.  Hey American Express -- bring your fees down so more places will take it!

Rested, clean, fed -- ready to take on the world :)

My AirBnB said the Eiffel Tower was just a 15 minute walk away - yeah, maybe for a 20 something who runs daily.  There is no way that is true.  However, Google Maps -- by the way, best invention ever - said it was 30 minutes.  Did I mention the heat?  I'm sure it is a very pleasant walk when the temperature is mid 70s with a cool breeze.  We took our time, we wanted to get our bearings anyway but by the time we got there, we knew we were taking the metro for the return trip.

We arrived at M. Eiffel's masterpiece.

We have all been to the top on previous visits so it wasn't on our agenda.  We went down the steps to the boat dock and bought water bottles and ice cream bars. 

We timed it just perfectly because after we finished our sweet treats, we got on a boat that was just about to get underway.  We took the hour river voyage from the Eiffel Tower to Notre Dame and back.

The heat was brutal so we slowly made our way back to the Metro stop near the tower.  We went back to the apartment but Rich left to go find that fan I mentioned before.  When he came back with it, he said it was the last one the shop had and it was the window display model.  We've since gone past the shop and see they have stocked up.  Yeah, I saw a number of folks toting around new purchases of fans in the intervening days.

Yes, it was early and yes, it's because we're US Americans but we went out for dinner at 7 pm.  There were several cafes we could have stopped at but Libby chose the very french Donner King.  Sandwiches and fries.  Worked for us.