Day 5 Tour De France

Today we were able to sleep in until 8:45, skipped breakfast and got on the bus to the airport headed for Paris. The plane ride was just under an hour, leaving us lots of time in Paris before night came on. When we checked into our 4 star hotel, the Chateau Frontenac, we found a balcony calling to us. Our room is one of the only rooms in the hotel that has a balcony access and it just happens to wrap around the building for a perfect view of the Eiffel Tower. After checking out our room for the next three nights, we headed downstairs to the basement for a quick drink and watched a bit of the tour. From then on, it was time to explore.
We headed to the Des Champs Elysees which is a street full of shopping, higher end. We ate at a nice pizza café on the sidewalk. We sat there eating and watching people. Several different languages and several different styles walked by our table. We kept guessing where people were coming from, their nationality being French, Japanese, English, American, or German. We were getting pretty good at guessing. After lunch we high tailed it back to the hotel to change into warmer clothes for our adventure to the Eiffel Tower. It took us about 20 minutes to walk there from our hotel. We had a nice walk along the river, and stopped for a chocolate crepe and popcorn. We then crossed the street and sat beneath the tower on a bench and ate our snacks looking up the center of the tower. We then decided to walk up instead of taking the elevator due to the lines were very long and the top was already closed due to weight capacity, too many people. We ended up walking up the stairs to the 2nd level, about 175 feet high. Pretty scary when your afraid of heights, but if you looked around instead of down, you were ok. It was absolutely beautiful. We missed the sunset due to climbing stairs, but once we were to the viewing level, the lights of the city really started to show. After reviewing the history of the city, we decided to head back down the stairs to take a better look at the tower of lights from a distance. The whole tower is lit with flashing lights as soon as the sun goes down. You can see the lights for up to 24 miles.
After gaulking at all the structures and monuments that Paris has to offer, far more than one can possibly absorb in just one day, we decided to take a long walk back to the hotel and then across the street for our nightly expresso.