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I’m not quite sure how I developed my distaste, fear even, of public transportation, particularly of buses.  While I am not crazy about crowds, I know I can tolerate jostling humanity for a few minutes, or even hours.  I am certain that it is not snobbery, for I drove 72 miles to and from work in Chicago for twelve years, hoping for the day (which never came) that a train line would take me near to my office.  Nonetheless, I have this irrational dread of figuring out how to buy a ticket, getting on the wrong bus, going in the wrong direction, knowing full well I’m capable of successfully negotiating the process.  I have taken trains all over Europe, and still double and triple check every move I make until I’m deposited at my destination.  The worst though, are buses and, on this particular warm, sunny day, the very thought of the Parisian Metro petrified me.

Sure, I’ve heard from previous travelers to France about the simplicity and efficiency of the Paris Metro.  No matter, I still awoke and grasped for the map of the system in the back of our guide, already slightly dog-eared from much stressed perusal on the flight over.  Were I alone, I would not have hesitated to walk to the Eiffel Tower from the 3^rd Arrondisement, but I had four sets of wearily limbs that had already done yeomen’s duty the last few days, and deserved to be mechanically transported to the Tour d’Eiffel.  I plodded from the bedroom to the living room, where the kids were making themselves a breakfast of Frosted Flakes and orange juice.  The small grocer across the street had everything we could possibly need for our little kitchen, from wine to American cereal, but he did not carry fresh milk.  I had taken a chance and bought aseptic milk, hoping the flavor had improved when I was introduced to it in Italy as a small kid.  Evidently it had, from the way our kids were munching and slurping their way through the cereal.  It’s funny how, deprived from commonplace foods for a few days, they dove into the Frosted Flakes as if it were some culinary essential they hadn’t encountered in years.  They were very excited about the prospect of the Eiffel Tower, as it was the one thing that they all associated with France prior to the trip.  We already had Eiffel Tower post cards we had written, and we had souvenir mini Eiffel Towers spread around the apartment.  So that, and the idea of an underground train ride, put a bounce in their step as were locked up and headed for the Metro station at the Hotel d’Ville.

I cheated.  I lost my nerve.  When I approached the counter and gazed into the eyes of the ticket clerk, an imposing young lady with a friendly smile, I jettisoned my self-imposed linguistic discipline and said, softly so the family wouldn’t overhear, “Do you speak English?”  Of course she did, and despite all of my misplaced anguish, quickly walked away with our Metro tickets as well as crystal clear directions for making the transfer at.  Soon the train whooshed up to the platform, and off we railed on our short trip to the Eiffel Tower.   When we climbed the steps back into the bright morning sun, and oriented ourselves, we climbed more steps.  There the skeletal erector set of which the French are so proud stood before us in all its glory.  My wife demanded pictures.  My children demanded an assault to the summit.  I noticed only the two scourges of travel – a massive crowd, and peddlers.  We were still hundreds of yards away from the ticket offices at each of the four bases, and we were already elbow to elbow with tourist (not to be confused with near-natives like ourselves), and besieged every few steps by men and boys hawking junk of every description.  They were everywhere.  I was convinced that they were bused in by the army load, and the closer we got to the tower the more peddlers per square foot there were.  The most prominent trinket being pushed upon us was a wind-up mechanical bird that flew a couple yards and clunked to the ground.  Naturally, the boys gazed at them, which whetted the industrious appetite of the intrepid, swarthy salesmen.  Somehow we managed to squeeze beyond them, pointing the boys toward our goal.

The tower rose into a warm hazy sky of gunmetal gray.  The structure itself was at the same time mechanically businesslike yet still endowed with a grace that emanated from its curves that extend from the four massive bases before it becomes unified and thrusts phallic-like into the haze.  Make no bones about it – it is large.  It dominates that entire section of Paris, and colossal contrast to the 19^th century brick buildings and stone streets that run perpendicular from the quadrangle that the Eiffel Tower is anchored within.  Photographers like us quickly learned that they would need to back a thousand yards away if they wanted to capture the entire edifice in the frame.  As we came upon the nearest base, containing one of four ticket windows, set of stairs and elevator, we slowed to merge with the gathering crowd which united with the large crowd already in line.  I sighed as quietly as I could.  Truthfully, I would have been more than satisfied to ponder the marvels of the Eiffel Tower from a distance, as part of the Parisian skyline, leaving the treasures of the summit to a future visit, if ever.  It simply struck me as time consuming, hot, crowded, and a waste of money.  Such a notion was inconceivable to the three kids, though, so I knew better than to try to dissuade them from the crowds and peddlers, let alone the cost required to get a family of five lofted into the bowels of this beast of French eclecticism.  So we got ourselves in line, bottles of water priced like champagne shoved in our faces as the buzz–clink of the toy birds dived bombed around us.  Soon, we realized a decision would need to be made.  Would we climb the old fashioned way our take the unsettling 45-degree elevator?  My wife made a bold move, and I applauded her for it.  Under no circumstances, she declared, would she be making for the top.  Bully for you dear, I encouraged silently, if not a little cowardly.  One of our sons agreed that he would not want to go up all the way, but at least to the first main level.  The other two still had the ideal of the tippy-top in their heads, so we concluded that we would take the stairs to the first level, and gauge the situation from that height.

My wife and older son stayed on the first main level, having watched the ground slowly recede below them through the open stairs and deciding the enough was enough.  They chose to reward their efforts with strawberry ice cream cones and a tour of the restaurant and post office.  I would have been quite satisfied to join them, but we still had two that wanted to go higher.  The stairs accommodated those going up and down, and some, whether climbers or descenders, chose the inside part of the open stairwell in order to grasp some psychological sense of greater safety.  It made for some interesting traffic jams, though.  This time the height slowed my two down as well, but they bravely persevered to the next level that, though a much tighter space than the level below, still provided a 360-degree walk-around.  The climb to the top was jettisoned as my son and daughter both decided that the panorama here was sufficient for picture taking.  I had to admit that the view of the Seine and museum row was magnificent, as was the brilliant whiteness of the Sacre Cour.  We lingered a bit to gain our composure for the trip back down, but the thought of ice cream steeled us for the return journey.

After a rest underneath a tree to get out of the heat for a bit, and also to allow our stomachs to catch up with us now that we were on terra firma, we found a nice gentleman that agreed to take a family picture of us with the Eiffel Tower in the background, and he was as determined as we were to get the top of it in the background.  He would check the viewfinder and shake his head, and further away we would walk.  It became comical to the point of embarrassment as we moved for the third time, but he and my wife agreed in two languages that we had come this far, and we would get it right.  A half-mile later we heard the satisfying click-whir as our picture was taken, after which we thanked our friend and moved on to new adventures.

This entry was posted on June 1, 2012 at 3:35 pm and is filed under Family, Travel with tags eiffel, paris. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.