This is going to be short because I have a 5:00 AM wake-up call tomorrow! Stan and I are going on an early photo-shoot so we can take a few shots without crowds of people everywhere.
Today (Saturday) we went to see Notre-Dame (exterior only because the line to get in was a mile long), had lunch at the Mexican restaurant we went to the other day, and took a tour of the Eiffel Tower including a ride all the way to the TOP!
The history of Notre-Dame and the Eiffel Tower is SO interesting. I do not have time to share the details in this post . . . perhaps later. In the meantime here are some of the shots I took today.
Hope you enjoy!
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The Opera House
(Again, because it's my favorite.) |
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The Opera House
I love the exterior and interior of this building. |
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| The Opera House |
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| The Opera House |
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The Grand Hotel, Paris
I like the light fixtures. |
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| The Grand Hotel, Paris |
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| I loved this marble tile and pattern. |
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| Old Glory in the middle. |
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| Stan |
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| Notre-Dame |
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| Notre-Dame |
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| Notre-Dame |
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| South (?) side of Notre-Dame |
Here is one of the many bridges in Paris that is covered with love-locks. What happens is, sweethearts write their names on a padlock, attach it to the railing and throw the key into the river to symbolize unbreakable love. Notice the couple in the background taking their wedding photos on the bridge . . .
Here is a story about love-locks from Wikipedia:
The history of love padlocks dates back at least 100 years to a melancholy Serbian tale of World War I, with an attribution for the bridge Most Ljubavi (lit. the Bridge of Love) in spa town of Vrnjačka Banja. A local school-mistress named Nada, who was from Vrnjačka Banja, fell in love with a Serbian officer named Relja. After they committed to each other Relja went to war in Greece where he fell in love with a local woman from Corfu. As a consequence, Relja and Nada broke off their engagement. Nada never recovered from that devastating blow, and after some time she died due to heartbreak from her unfortunate love. Young women from Vrnjačka Banja wanted to protect their own loves so they started writing down their names, with the names of their loved ones, on padlocks and affixing them to the railings of the bridge where Nada and Relja used to meet.
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| Love Locks |
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| Notre-Dame from the other side of the river. |
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| Lunch break. |
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| The city of love. |
The Eiffel Tower has three observation decks. We stopped at each one! The view from the top deck was spectacular. My photos do not do justice. (My stomach was in my throat the whole time, so that did not help my photography either!) I thought of my cousin Andrew while I was here because I believe he proposed to his wife in Paris. Was it at the Eiffel Tower?
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| Historic Paris in the foreground, modern Paris in the background. |
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| Taken from the middle deck. |
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| Maggie in Paris. |
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| Arc de Triomphe |
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| Taken from inside the elevator. |
