Highlights from France: The Eiffel Tower

With backpacks packed, we left Lille for our first major trip in our Euro Trip. We were leaving for Spain by rail, with a plan to travel for 2 whole days before actually reaching the destination. But like the saying always goes it’s not the destination that matters but the journey! Well in this case, I got both!

The “plan” was to spend an evening in Paris on our way to Spain, since we had a stopover in Paris overnight. We had just a couple of hours and we thought we will make use of the time to go see the Eiffel Tower and head back to the station next night

As we reached Paris Nord, there was excitement all around to go see the Eiffel Tower quite a contrast to what I was actually feeling inside. Unlike every other girl, somehow Paris never held any fascination for me. I had seen pictures of the Eiffel tower before of course and somehow never could fathom what all the hype was about. Weren’t there other structures, much taller than this one? Being a management student, I also considered the thought that the hype was nothing short of a marketing gimmick to promote tourism.

But sometimes the mighty could fall too ;).  The first glimpse of the gigantic structure and I was blown away.

The sheer size of the massive structure can make your eyes ogle. The naturally golden shine of the structure was spell-binding and I truly wish I could articulate the feeling much better. But I cannot muster none of the right words. Not really in the romantic sense as it is often portrayed but in the royal sense. You see that and all one can think of is the grandeur of the majestic structure. It was truly dazzling.

I think the feeling was mutual among all of us for we were all wowed by the sheer intricacy of the tower and fell in love with it the very same instant.  It was as if everyone was choked with emotions all at once and for once we were all quiet with just nothing more to say. Maybe that’s the source of all the romanticism; to bring the one you loved right before a structure that can overwhelm you and make you feel so passionately in a span of a few seconds.

We also witnessed the lights show that is turned on for the first five minutes in every hour. We got to watch it twice, but I must say the normal golden lights were much more impressive than the popularly campaigned lights show with 100 lights dazzling all over the structure in front of your eyes, moving the attention away from the structure itself which was the beauty of it all.