France | Day 2, Paris: Eiffel Tower, Sacre-Coeur, Seine River Cruise

Tuesday, June 13
THE EIFFEL TOWER

When Doug visited Paris in 1989 with his brother, David, he was 20 years old and traveling on a limited budget. With the cost for a ticket to the top of the Eiffel Tower at 12Fr (way back when they were still using francs) they settled for a ticket to the lower platform. He saved 7Fr, but he regretted that decision for the next 34 years!

That regret became a sort of benchmark for our trip: Do you want to do ____________? If you don’t do it, will it be your Eiffel Tower? Don’t let it be your Eiffel Tower!!!

So, obviously, going to the top of the Eiffel Tower was a must. Imagine our dismay when we missed the ticket onsale! Thankfully, while timed-entry tickets are released online 60 days in advance, if they sell out for the day of your visit (or if you don’t know when you’ll be there, or want to wait for good weather) you can just show up and wait in line like the olden days. So that’s what we did.

We expected a wait. What we didn’t expect was a crash course in French culture.

But First, Our New Friends

When we arrived at 9:00 a.m., a half-hour before the tower and ticket window are scheduled to open (key word: scheduled), the line was already quite long. A family with a very friendly mom got in line behind us. They looked like they might be South Asian, and the mom was wearing a hijab, and because we were in Europe, well, I just assumed they were from some country in the eastern hemisphere. But, no. They were Americans! But not just any Americans. They were from South Windsor, Connecticut!!! WHAT?! We had a great time chatting with them. Just think about it: the mom was born in India, moved to America, married a man from New York City, is raising her family in Connecticut, and we met at the Eiffel Tower in Paris! Life is weird.

Our Crash Course in French Culture

So shortly before 9:30 a.m., security started letting everyone through the main gates, sending us all into the wide open asphalted space below the tower. No stanchions. No signage. No one providing directions of any kind. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of people just milling about trying to form lines. So we get in one of these “lines” with our new friends from America and wait. In the sun. Wait. On hot pavement. Wait. No ticket window opening. No announcements about the delay. Nothing. We just wait.

By 10:00 a.m., rumors are flying – a strike, a maintenance issue, someone’s filming a documentary. The group of women from the U.K. who were standing behind us say, “This is just how ‘mainlanders’ are. They just do what they want. They could be out back having a smoke for all we know!” They also remarked on the lack of organized lines, saying that the British love a good queue but ‘mainlanders’ don’t queue at all, and we should know that this whole debacle is just how it’s going to be all over France.

Spoiler Alert: They weren’t wrong.

Lots of people, including Doug and I, tried talking to Eiffel Tower staff but it was almost impossible to find anyone. When we did find someone, they acted as if they didn’t speak English or pretended they suddenly got a phone call and walked away. It was almost comical. Eventually, due to timing constraints, people began to leave, including the group of British women behind us. A whole group of little kids in matching neon orange vests, presumably on a field trip, left also. It was a sad little sight, them all trailing out in two neat little rows, covered in sweat and disappointment.

Around 10:30 a.m., we got excited as a voice came over a loudspeaker. (Until then, we weren’t even sure they had one.) We listened eagerly as the disembodied voice said, “Please don’t leave your bags unattended, thank you.” That was it.

I looked at my family and new friends and said, “Now, I just feel like they’re mocking us.”

If you’re wondering why we didn’t leave it’s because we had a pretty jam-packed itinerary with timed-entry tickets for other sites on other days, and as you know, Doug absolutely had to go to the top of the tower.

Well, FINALLY, at about 10:45 a.m., with no announcement or fanfare of any kind, they opened the ticket windows and started letting people into the tower. (For those who want to know: It took about another hour and 15 minutes for us to buy tickets, clear security and ride the elevator to the top.)

If you continue to follow our France adventures, you will see that this sort of failure to communicate, and general lack of urgency or concern, prevails throughout the trip. A bit of a challenge for four ambitious Americans from New England.

To the Top, Finally!

I confess: I was a little nervous about going to the top of the tower. I loathe crowds and have a fear of being trapped, so my biggest concern was the elevator ride. Also, heights sometimes give me vertigo but not because I’m afraid of them; it’s just a weird neurological glitch. I’m pleased to say the elevator ride was quite tolerable. It’s just about two minutes long, very smooth, and there is an operator in the car with you the entire time. I looked away from the window, slowed my breathing, centered myself and prayed. And I held Doug’s hand.

But fair warning: They DID cram us in like pickles in a glass jar, and everyone was DEAD silent, and the elevator itself was ominously quiet except for this singular clicking noise every 10 seconds for the ENTIRE climb: click……….click……….click……….. The only way I can think to describe it is “eerie” – like we were headed up to an alien spaceship rather than the top of a one of the world’s most frequented observation decks.

I just kept telling myself that if I could ride in that hell-box of an elevator at our Airbnb, I could do this!

In the end, the view from the top was worth it all. The weather was perfect. The visibility, great. We took our time walking around the platform, looking out over Paris and taking photos in every direction. I didn’t even care about the crowds (and I do hate crowds) because I was standing on the top of the Eiffel Tower! Little girl who never thought she’d see the west coast of America, let alone France, who used to be afraid to fly, who never dared to dream this big….she was atop the Eiffel Tower. It felt like a fairytale. I’ll say it one more time: I was standing on the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France!!!

Once we felt like we’d seen all we could, we got in line for the elevator. The vibe was far less tense going down and I even peeked out the window a couple times.

We decided to visit the lower observation platform also, where the deck is bigger, but so are the crowds. The views are still impressive, but if you have the time, the extra €10, and the fortitude, to go all the way to the top! There is a small but well-supplied gift shop on the lower platform but the line was atrocious, so we opted to head out and shop at the stores just outside the tower.

Also, it’s important to note that the tower platforms may have been more crowded than usual when we were there because the delayed opening created a back up of visitors. Basically, all the people who had timed entry between 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m., plus all the stand-by patrons like us, were entering at the same time. And tower staff did not appear to be restricting the number of people who entered at a given time.

Cost & Time Needed to Visit the Eiffel Tower

If we subtract the extra one hour and fifteen minutes we waited because the Eiffel Tower opened late with no warning or explanation, our visit took about 2.5 hours. This includes arriving 30 minutes early, security checks (one at the gate and one at tower entry), buying tickets, waiting for the elevator up and down, and exploring the tower and views. Tickets cost about €30 per person.

(Y’all that took so long to write and we did so much more that day. I am sorry for the length of this post!)

LUNCH AT TASCA, A GLUTEN-FREE ITALIAN RESTAURANT

For lunch, we walked from the Eiffel Tower to nearby Tasca, an entirely gluten-free Italian restaurant. Like many places in France, Tasca had no air conditioning so we opted to wait for a table outside. (If you don’t already know, it was unseasonably hot the entire time we were in France, so we really missed American air conditioning.)

The service and food were excellent!

The staff was helpful and accommodating. They read our allergy cards, did their best to understand us, and sought assistance from other staff when the language barrier was too challenging. They allowed me to modify the veggies in my risotto, and gave the impression that they would modify any meal if possible.

We started with perfectly textured, gluten-free Italian bread which, as any gluten-free person knows, is a rarity. For the main course, both the girls ordered another scarce dish: gluten-free ravioli! Though I couldn’t have the ravioli (sad face) because it was made with corn starch, I was able to eat the scrumptious Risotto all’Ortolana. Doug had a pizza all to himself, and a local beer. For dessert, I had the chocolate mousse and Jacquelyn had the panna cotta.

EVERYTHING was absolutely delicious. Even Doug, who is not gluten-free, ate his entire gluten-free pizza! I think we would have eaten there again if we were ever in that area at the right time, but alas, no such luck. We all highly recommend Tasca for gluten-free and not gluten-free diners alike.

BASILIQUE DU SACRÉ-CŒUR | BASILICA OF THE SACRED HEART

After lunch, we took the metro to Sacre-Coeur, the second most visited church in France (behind Notre-Dame de Paris) and the second highest point in the city (the Eiffel Tower being the highest). The metro only gets you so close, so we had to walk uphill through city streets to reach the base of the basilica. (The main street up the hill with all its little shops is absolutely adorable. And absolutely none of us got a photo of it.) If all that walking and climbing sounds daunting, don’t worry. Once you’re at the base of the basilica, there is a little funicular railway you can ride to the top. Our NaviGo pass even worked there!

Sacre-Coeur is a sight to behold both inside and out. Inside, we took our time looking at the sculptures, art, artifacts, stained glass, and various chapels, then sat down to pray for a little while. Outside we admired the the view while listening to a violinist play everything from hymns to Ed Sheeran’s Thinking Out Loud. We also considered climbing the stairs to the dome, but when we saw that it was 300 more steps and we had to pay to climb them, we opted to spend some time on the grassy hill instead. (Don’t worry, we made sure it wasn’t going to be anyone’s “Eiffel Tower!”)

The hill in front of the basilica is a great place to relax and enjoy the view of the city. That said, our time on the hill could have been more peaceful if I hadn’t sat next to a woman on a zoom call (Not only is it kind of rude to hold your work meeting in a public park, she was discussing staff evaluations with her boss and talking about said staff by name. So I now know how much of a raise Lizzy B is getting and why it’s not a very good one. And yes, she was American. And no, that’s not Lizzy B’s real name.), or if we hadn’t been swarmed (and I mean swarmed) by men trying to literally force their wares on to our bodies.

During the walk back to the metro, the girls did some souvenir shopping while I sat on a curb trying not to fall asleep!

SEINE RIVER CRUISE

Yes. There’s more. I’m getting tired just writing about it!

On our walk from the metro to the boat dock, we stumbled upon Place du Trocadéro. Unexpected finds are delightful, but especially on jam-packed trips like this one. I’m so glad we didn’t miss this vista:

The river cruise itself was good, but not great. If we were to do it again, we would book a longer cruise that provides more thorough – preferably live – interpretation of the various landmarks. For those who want to know, we were booked on the one-hour Bateaux Parisiens Cruise with Commentary, which cost around €20 per person. We had to choose a specific day for our cruise but we could show up any time and get in line for the next boat.

It was early evening so there was no line, the boat wasn’t crowded, and we got there just before departure which meant no waiting! The sun wasn’t too strong at that hour, so we opted to sit on the upper deck.

And while we didn’t learn as much as we would have liked, in the end it was a relaxing boat ride through Paris. Can’t really complain!

This was also the closest we would get to certain landmarks, most notably, Notre-Dame de Paris. The world-famous cathedral is still undergoing restoration after the devastating fire of April 15, 2019. The square in front of the cathedral and the archeological crypt were both open to visitors at the time of our trip, but given that we couldn’t enter the cathedral itself, we settled for viewing from afar. And there was no shortage of cathedrals on this trip, so we did not feel terribly deprived!

One of my favorite sites was the Zouave statue. I remember seeing him on the news during the Paris floods of 2016. Passing by him on the river as he loomed over us, I was shocked by his immensity. The images I saw on television just don’t do his size justice. Now did any of us get a photo of Zouave? Of course not. So I scoured the internet for you and found one with a boat passing by to gives you an idea of our experience, and an article with images from the floods of 2010 and 2016. Enjoy!

The river cruise was our first introduction to a lovely little tradition in France: people on land waving to people on boats. (I have a great video compilation of this but I can’t share it on this site, so check my Facebook if you want to see it.) At first we thought that maybe it was just a Paris thing, but we would come to learn that it happens all over the country. Does anyone know if this is a tradition in other countries as well?

We also noticed that people sit along the rivers in France far more than we Americans do. Anywhere there’s a river, you can find people sitting alongside picnicking, sharing a bottle of wine, just hanging out. It’s wonderful.

On our way back to the Airbnb, we stopped at a little grocery store near our flat and snagged some meats, cheeses, fruit, and other snacks for a makeshift charcuterie dinner.

That night marked my first encounter with the French strawberry, La Gariguette. Now, this may sound dramatic, but I’ll never be the same again. I may have only ever stepped foot on two continents and a handful of islands, but I’m not afraid to say: you’ll be hard pressed to find a strawberry that tastes better than La Gariguette. More on that to come! (And NO! No I do NOT have a photo of these strawberries. SMH. So you’ll have to settle for one from Wikimedia Commons.)

We ended our day like we ended every day in Paris: watching the sunset out the back windows and admiring the Eiffel Tower from the balcony.

(Next up: Palace of Versailles)