The Eiffel Tower – A Promise Kept

Image: Gustave Eiffel’s gift to the people of France and tourists the world over

…

On my recent trip to Paris I finally kept a promise I have been holding myself to for over 30 years: namely that the next time I visited Paris I would go to the Eiffel Tower and make the journey to the top. The story behind that promise may be a good example of how the arrogance of youth can change as one gets older and – hopefully – wiser.

Way back in the early 1970s, when I was in my mid-20s I passed through Paris on my way back to London from Greece. I’d met a couple of other travelers on the train ride from Athens, and during our stay in Paris we went to see the Eiffel Tower.

My memory is hazy now about the exact details, but I do remember that I considered myself to be too ‘cool’ to do the standard tourist thing and actually go up the Tower. After all, it seemed such a clichéd thing to do, and even back then I was not interested in following the crowd. Of course, I was happy enough doing that other clichéd tourist activity – posing inanely before Gustave Eiffel’s Tower and getting my, “This is me in front of …” picture (a practice by the way, that I try to steer clear of now).

But then, over the years, somewhere along the way, I began to regret my decision. After all, on that 1970s trip I remember my travel companions and I did visit the Louvre, and we did go and see the Mona Lisa, and wasn’t that as much a cliché as visiting the Eiffel Tower? And just for the record, I did make another visit to Mona during my trip to Paris.

Why do we travel anyway, if not to see and experience as fully as possible the cities and locations we have chosen to visit? Going to the Louvre just to see the Mona Lisa would be a complete waste of time and money, given the effort one has to go through to actually see the painting. There are thousands of other reasons to visit the Louvre (namely the other paintings, sculptures, displays, etc), and personally I think most of them are more interesting and exciting to examine than the Mona Lisa’s whimsical smile.

The same reasoning can be used regarding the Eiffel Tower. If you are visiting just so you can cross it off your highlights list, you are missing some of the real magic of the experience. For me, that magic and wonder involves the groundbreaking feat of engineering that went into building this amazing structure, even more than the view over Paris.

…

Image: The bird’s-eye view from the top of the Eiffel Tower

…

Image: The Eiffel Tower would be hard enough to build today, let alone over 100 years ago!

…

Gustave Eiffel was writing the book when his company designed and built the tower that honours his name, not working out of someone else’s book of instructions.

Eiffel was born in Dijon on December 15, 1832. Graduating as an engineer in 1855, he was soon hired as associate by Charles Neveu, a manufacturer of steam engines and railway equipment. It wasn’t long before Eiffel had started his own company, and for the next 20 years or so he specialized in designing and constructing a range of projects including numerous bridges, viaducts, and other major buildings. From 1881-84 Gustave Eiffel also designed and built the framework of Bartholdi’s Statue of Liberty, which now stands at the entrance of New York harbour.

…

Image: Gustave Eiffel ‘s metallic structure for the Statue of Liberty

Image courtesy of the Official Eiffel Tower website…

…

In 1884, answering a bid to mark the centenary of the 1889 French Revolution, Gustave Eiffel, together with his associates Emile Nouguier and Maurice Koechlin, pitch their idea for the construction of the Tower.

Construction involved over 5,300 drawings, and a team of 120 workers to fit together more than 18,000 parts, weighing over 10,000 tons, using 2.5 million rivets, over a period of two years. Despite the fact that the men were working hundreds of metres above the ground, only one man died during the construction of the Tower, and that accident occurred outside of regular working hours.

As you might imagine, almost immediately after its completion, the 324 metre (1,063 ft) Tower began to attract a motley collection of adventurers and thrill seekers intent on trying to be the first to set a range of records associated with the structure. These include Santos-Dumont who, in 1901, won a prize for flying higher than the Tower in an airship, and the Count de Lambert who flew over Paris in an airplane in 1909, and around the Tower for the first time.

Sadly, in 1912, a tailor nicknamed “the bird man”, died when he jumped from the first floor using a parachute of his own design and construction, and in 1926, Léon Collot, also died when he tried to fly under the Eiffel Tower. Happily, the two paratroopers who jumped from the third floor in 1984 without permission lived to tell the tale, while in 1987, a New-Zealander performed a bungee jump – again without permission – from the second floor.

…

Image: Some of the intricate steel lacing and support work at the first level

…

And so it continues. A veritable circus of stair climbers and runners, motocross and mountain bike riders, wheelchair users, and yes, Ripley, believe it or not, even a circus elephant (which climbed the stairs to the first floor) have used the Eiffel Tower to add their names to the record books.

For my money, none of those noted above are a patch on Victor Lustig who in 1925 ‘sold’ the Eiffel Tower to a scrap metal merchant after convincing him that the Tower was going to be demolished. And why not? Originally, the Tower was meant to stand for just 20 years, after which it would be pulled down. The fact that it is still around 120 years later is a testament to the design and construction skills of Gustave Eiffel and his team of workers.

Today, the Eiffel Tower is the most visited fee-paying monument in the world, attracting over 7 million visitors each year. Some twenty replicas large and small can be found around the world in countries as far afield as the Poland, Denmark, Belgium, the United States, China, Japan and Dubai. Even in France itself, a 10 metre high tower weighing 3.2 tons was built for the France in Miniature Park. One can’t help but wonder whether Gustave Eiffel, who died in 1923 at the age of 91, ever in his wildest dreams thought his tower would become such an icon, not just for Paris and France, but also for the rest of the world. One that continues to reach well into the 21st century.

For all these and more reasons, I wanted finally, to visit the Eiffel Tower after more than 30 years. If I had made that journey in the early 1970s, it would have only been for the photo opportunities it would have given me. Now that I am much older, and at least a little bit wiser, I have finally honoured that promise to return, and have done so at a time when I have been able to appreciate the engineering skills that built it – as well as to take the photographs and enjoy the great views.

More information

The Official Eiffel Tower website…

The Eiffel Tower page at Wikipedia…

Paris, France

Image: The iconic Eiffel Tower late on a winter's afternoon

...

Just a couple of quick photographs to let you know I haven't been asleep during my nine day sojourn in Paris. I have much to write, and will do so as time permits, but for now - as I ready myself to return to Greece - these two shots will have to do as an appetiser.

...

Image: One for the romantics - Parisian sunset over the Seine

The Last Time I Saw Paris

Image: The Palace of Justice buildings overlooking the River Seine
…

The last time I saw Paris, was during the summer of 1975. If I say nineteen seventy-five as quickly as possible, it doesn't seem like 35 years ago – but 35 it was! On several very brief visits to France in the early 1970s, I never spent more than a couple of days in Paris itself, so you can be sure I was looking forward to my current ten night stay in this amazing city.

Already I am overwhelmed by the possibilities. Paris is a photographers dream, as well as their nightmare. There is so much history here; so many amazing buildings, streetscapes, wonderful backdrops, and spectacular locales waiting to be photographed that one great image is immediately supplanted by another one, and many others after that. And that’s before one actually enters any of the dozens of famous museums and galleries or visits historic monuments that present tens of thousands of photographic opportunities. Millions, even.

…Image: Motorbikes and scooters disappearing under a cover of snow
…

When I stepped off my flight from Athens on Friday night, the temperature was a freezing minus three degrees. I’d forgotten how cold that is, but Paris didn’t take long to remind me.

On Saturday it snowed for most of the day. That may not mean much to many readers, but it was the first time I had experience the magic of falling snow since my last winter in London in 1976! Yes, it doesn’t take much to keep me happy on a holiday as you might guess, especially since we don’t get much snow where I come from in Australia (in point of fact, we don’t get any). That’s why I was happy to slop through the streets while freezing every step of my first exploratory walk around the neighborhood surrounding the Palace Hotel, which I am calling home during my stay.

…

Image: View of apartment blocks taken from the Pompidou Centre
…

Its far too early to give you any sort of useable impressions, but one obvious change over the past 35 years has been the huge influx of new immigrants into France. I can’t give you a breakdown of immigrant figures, but there appear to be large numbers of Indians and Pakistanis, and migrants from former French colonies in North Africa. Then there are Lebanese migrants and of course, Asians.

I don’t know how much of that often talked about French arrogance still persists, but I suspect even that has been tempered by the new migrants who have opened businesses across the city.

For example, the small Boulangerie that I have adopted for my morning coffee and cake, turns out to be run by Lebanese (whose owner has cousins in Sydney and Melbourne, and who speak perfect English, and are happy to use it). The young woman at the Asian restaurant I ate dinner at the other night also spoke excellent English, which made me think they were originally Hong Kong Chinese. And so it goes. In the face of all these new migrants that speak at least three languages, and sometimes more, the French must surely have begun to adapt and change their attitudes to foreign nationals, and to how they communicate with them.

So far, my very limited French has got me through every important encounter where I have needed to use it, and I’ve managed to bluff my way through others when my language skills were totally deficient – which is most of the time. It’s all part of the great adventure that is international travel, and I’m looking forward to the challenges and rewards ahead.

Top 10 Destinations for Opera Lovers: Part 2

~ Frommer's asked the editors of OPERA NEWS magazine, whose European Travel issue hits newsstands mid-April, to come up with the top 10 destinations that should be included on every opera lover's roadmap this year.

I listed the first five (in no particular order), in an earlier posting on this blog.

Here are the last five top destinations for lovers of opera.

FRANCE: Paris
Has any place inspired more operas than Paris, perhaps the most romantic city on earth? Paris's newest home for opera is the spacious but somewhat chilly Opéra de la Bastille, which boasts an unrestricted view of the stage from each of its 2,700 seats, but the city's most famous operatic landmark remains the opulent nineteenth-century Palais Garnier, familiar to lovers of Broadway's Phantom of the Opera. Don't miss a chance to visit Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, an Art Deco masterpiece that is one of Europe's prettiest theaters, or the devastatingly elegant Théatre du Châtelet. Also worth a trip is the Salle Favart, its frothy good looks an apt metaphor for the light-hearted attractions of its home company, the Opéra-Comique.

THE UNITED STATES: Civic Opera House, Chicago
Chicago's Civic Opera House is one of the most beautiful buildings in a city that prides itself on its architecture. Built in 1929, this ageless amalgam of Renaissance revival and Art Deco has superb acoustics, excellent sightlines and sumptuous public spaces, including a handsomely proportioned lobby designed by Jules Guerin. The theatre was home to several Chicago opera companies before its most distinguished tenant, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, arrived in 1954. The Lyric established the City of Big Shoulders as an international opera capital, offering the opera world's brightest stars in top-notch productions. After the Lyric season ends in late winter, Chicago's opera lovers hold on until spring, when the adventurous Chicago Opera Theatre presents its three-opera season at the slick new Harris Theatre for Music and Dance in Millennium Park.



SWEDEN: The Drottningholm Court Theatre
Built in 1766 for the Swedish queen, Lovisa Ulrika, the Drottningholm Court Theatre-located in the Royal Domain of Drottningholm, only a short bus or boat ride from the capital city of Stockhom-is a thing of exquisite artifice. The theatre was a beehive of musical and theatrical activity during the late eighteenth century, but when Lovisa Ulrika's son (and political enemy), King Gustaf III was assassinated-an event used as the basis for Verdi's opera Un Ballo in Maschera,-the theatre fell into disuse; it was a storage facility for much of the nineteenth century. Drottningholm was recalled to life in the 1920s and now presents a brief summer season each year, with the repertory usually drawn from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Spring and summer tours of the theatre and the palace grounds are relatively infrequent, in order to spare its eighteenth-century charms from the wear-and-tear of twenty-first-century life. Early booking is advisable.

THE UNITED STATES: Santa Fe Opera
In 1957, New York conductor John Crosby started an opera company in a highly unlikely locale: the breathtaking mountains of northern New Mexico. Crosby's impossible dream has endured: every July and August since then, Santa Fe Opera has presented an imaginative, exciting mix of familiar classics, rarely-performed treasures and brand-new works, their casts generally populated by the best young singers in America. Opera lovers from all over the world have been thrilled by Santa Fe's singular natural beauty, an element in the company's appeal celebrated by its dramatically proportioned adobe theatre, which has unequalled views of the high desert landscape - and the heart-stopping beauty of its sunsets. Daytime hours in Santa Fe can be spent sampling the myriad charms of the city itself and of its thriving local community of world-class artists and artisans.

ENGLAND: Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Sussex
The thoroughly English character of Glyndebourne Festival Opera reflects the personality of its eccentric founder, John Christie, who developed the ambitious scheme to offer festival-quality opera performances on his East Sussex estate beginning in 1934. Christie's original theatre was eventually replaced by a completely new facility in 1994, but the abiding presence of the Christie home and the continued involvement of Christie's descendants in festival life have allowed Glyndebourne to retain much of its original atmosphere. The operas of Mozart have been at the core of Glyndebourne's repertory for all of its existence, but more esoteric fare - including some world premieres - is also among the company specialties.

About Frommer's
The market leader in travel guides, Frommer's has a guide for every type of traveler-from the sophisticated world traveler to the first-time student traveler on a tight budget. Frommer's publishes more than 300 guides and sells 2.5 million guides annually, reaching 7 million travellers who count on Frommer's for exact prices, savvy trip-planning, sightseeing advice, dozens of detailed maps, and candid reviews of hotels and restaurants in every price range. Frommer's-the best trips start here. Frommers.com is a comprehensive, opinionated travel resource featuring more than 3,500 world destinations.



Image courtesy Civic Opera House, Chicago