Magnifique! Just impossibly amazing!

Here is my first photo of the day seen on our way out this morning:

Our lovely apartment is on the second floor, which means in 

American terms, the third floor, but on this gentle staircase it isn't bad at all.

Now the sky I was able to see before we left home at 8:00 a.m. was blue, but when we arrived at the Eiffel Tower to stand in line for an hour, only a bit of it was blue, the remainder was cloudy and gray accompanied by an intermittent wind. Plus the time we thought the first elevator would go to the top was 9:00, but today's opening was 9:30! Still we chatted (as we shivered) with a couple from near Melbourne, Australia, who know where Bill and Mary's Daisy Hill Road is! (Remember Bill and Mary from last year's trip?) Here are Jamie and Hideko standing in line-- a few people to the right of the Aussie in the pink shirt:

It wasn't much after 9:30 that we were swooped up in the diagonal elevator to the second level, then in line briefly to take an even longer ride to the tip top! Oh, my! 

Talk about the world at our feet!

To the northwest across the Seine River, The Trocadero, where people go at night to see the Tower all lit up;

To the north, that chunky block is the Arch de Triomphe, we'll visit it later.

To the southeast, the Champs de Mars, a huge grassy area, where we got our unimpeded views of the Tour Eiffel!

And here we are--at the top!

Brilliantl!  You can see the fence stopping us from leaping off the tower and a very little, I think, of the Trocadero over my shoulder. It's still fun, though, don't you think?

Now to the Champs de Mars for photos of the tower from ground level:

and--ta-dah!

Now, remember that chunky block of L'Arch de Triomphe?

Look closely to see the tiny people standing beside it! Teeny tiny people!

Now from the top of the arch going away from Paris:

And toward Paris (of course it's ALL Paris, but you get the idea)

the Champs Elysee, prototype for a grand boulevard over all the world:

Look at all the lanes of traffic and all the trees! Napoleon III had 600,000 trees planted!

Atil atop the Arch, here's the Eiffel Tower-

And on a hill to the north and east: Sacre Coeur which rises above Monmartre (Remember the movie Moulin Rouge?) We're going there tomorrow, it's way cool!

Now to walk the Champs Elysee! All kinds of big brand stores, and I mean big brands like Cartier (un petit bijou, Papa?) and Tiffany, Louis Vuiton, and the like---PLUS this one:

the most profitable McDonald's in the world! 

We didn't eat there, we ate at Angelina's, which was pretty fan-ancy, I tell you, but great fun. Plus we had tomato soup, bread and cheese for dinner tonight to make up for it!

Angelina's trademark dessert is the Mont Blanc--a meringue, topped with chestnut cream and 'vermicelli' of chocolate! Also the chocolat chaud: a small pitcher of rich but not overly sweet hot chocolate served with a small cup of whipped cream--quite nice!!!

Finally to L'Orangerie, two large oval rooms with Monet's waterlilies painted all the way around--amazing! And with the clouds and intermittent bright sunshine, the images modulated as we watched. The same thing happened when Jenn and Jeff visited last summer. No photos allowed. I'll take some and show you tomorrow, but the battery is running out of time!!

So--a demain!