The Eiffel Tower 324 meters

June Seventeenth, 2012 - 

Today started out at 12:00pm, which was an awesome feeling to actually get to sleep in for a while.  We set out for the Tombeau de Napoleon, which is actually the same church that was constructed for Louis XIV as his own personal church.  This place was pretty small since the dome was actually lowered to show Louis XIV’s calves, but inside it is said that in order to see Napoleon’s tomb you must bend over to see down, which means you are bowing to him.  His sarcophagus is quite massive considering his size and it looks to be like that porphyry marble.  Musee de L’Armee, which contained artifacts and weapons from the 1600’s all the way up to around the 1950’s.  I ended up only getting to see most of the older things such as armor, swords, guns, and cannon type things that they had. 

After the Musee de L’Armee we went to the Musee de Rodin, which had a good bit of Rodin’s sculptures in his old house.  His house was actually a “hotel” at one point in time and after he became famous for his sculpture, the wealthy would come and hire him to make sculpture’s for themselves.  Most of his work was either in bronze or white marble and was magnificent.  I saw the Thinking man in its original size and the giant one that is placed outside. 

We continued the day and left Mused de Rodin for the Eiffel Tower and to climb it.  The line for the elevator was quite ridiculous so we ended up just taking the stairs, which was a good 2 hours less than the wait for the elevator. The tour had 3 stages, the first stop, which was not too high, then the second stage where you still had some good views and this was the last bit of stairs to climb until the elevator to the summit.  From the top of the Eiffel Tower you can see a full 360 degrees and as far as the eye can see.  This was an awesome experience and I definitely suggest it to anyone planning on making their way to Paris.  On a side not they are actually doing a little construction on the Eiffel where they are going to put a glass floor on the first stage so you can walk over it and be able to spread out and see more.