After a long time-zone adjusting sleep Sunday night, we headed in the direction of the Musée Rodin late Monday morning. Where we discovered that museums are closed on Mondays. Ok. Cross the museums off our list. What’s next? La Tour Eiffel.

Here was our first glimpse, as we walked in that direction.

Even closer yet, I realized that the tower is light brown in color, not the dark gray/black in my memory.

And then finally we were there, though too close to fit the tower into a single shot.

After taking umpteen beautiful but ordinary pictures of the whole tower, I started trying to take some more interesting shots. This is one of my favorites, especially for the old man who happened to be sitting on one of the benches, and the symmetry of the tower and the Palais de Chaillot in the background.

Continuing with my theme this trip of taking ground-up pictures, Stephanie and I both simultaneously had the idea to lean over into the camera’s field of view. Voila, la Tour Eiffel, upskirt, avec Justin et Stephanie.

The east piler (pilier est) from under the Eiffel Tower.

And here’s looking down on the east piler from the first floor of the tower, 95 meters up. This is probably one of my favorite photos. I love how small the people are and how the benches cast fuzzy little shadows.

The view looking east over Paris.

Looking through the tower across the Parc du Champs de Mars.

700 steps later, I made it to the second level of the Eiffel tower, probably about 200 meters off the ground. I left Stephanie behind at around step 500—the wind was blowing very hard and she started to feel a little vertigo.

Not so far in the distance a dark storm cloud was approaching, so I jogged down the steps to meet Stephanie on the first level, and we continued down together after watching a short educational video about the tower’s 18th(!) coat of paint. There were no words, so I didn’t find out anything about the color of paint chosen this go-around.