Gearing up for the Tour

Although I've seen very little evidence in the city of the looming Tour de France finale here, except a few bleachers from a distance, I geared up yesterday on my own tour de Paris en bicyclette with a company known as Fat Tire Bike Tours. I highly recommend them for a different way to view the city and plan to join them at some point for their night tour which is combined with a river boat ride.

So after a very slow start to the day, which I'm replicating today and rather enjoying (I finally feel part of the awake world now that the jet lag has passed!), I joined a group of tourists under the Eiffel tour. Met some great educators (aren't they all great?) from North Carolina (shared dinner with them later), Belgium, Australia and Finland! The tour was fun and took us to a variety of sights from the tower to the Concorde and the Hopital de Invalides. Learned a lot about Napolean as well as King Louis XIV who loved his calves and high heels, http://www.randomhistory.com/1-50/036heels.html (really, this link is interesting, scroll about half way down to picture of man in high heels!). So glad I did that!

The tour ended around 7 so I wandered a little and thought that it would probably be a good time to ascend the Eiffel tower as sunset would be upon the city and that would be a lovely time to be up there. So I climbed up to the second platform which is as far as you can go on foot. And I waited and waited and waited...but that sun never goes down it seems. Thus I chose to move on, took some twilight pictures and call it a night. I will go back though as it is truly picturesque and an amazement in day and lights.

I think it's about time to venture over to a cafe...