Eiffel Tower @ MindSay 
france
New look for Eiffel Tower
The elegant, tapering signature of the Eiffel Tower is to be reshaped, altering the skyline of Paris, in time for the structure's 120th anniversary next year, the Société d'exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (Sete) has just announced.
Serero Architects of Paris has won the competition to redesign the structure's public viewing platform and reception areas. The winning design, which will be 276 metres (905ft) above the ground, will not require any permanent modification of the existing structure. It will double the capacity of the public viewing area on the tower's top floor.
The new platform will be bolted onto the tower using a web of Kevlar, an extremely strong and lightweight carbon fibre used in the construction of racing cars and body armour. The new platform will use a cantilevered design similar to the way that an aircraft's wings are attached to the fuselage.
The design is already causing controversy, with critics questioning the wisdom of tinkering with the famous silhouette and spending money on upgrading a tourist attraction which attracts 6.9 million visitors a year.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Sete explained that the plan to restructure the top of the tower aims to increase the quality of access. Average waiting times for the tower's elevators currently run at more than an hour at peak times.
Gustave Eiffel designed the tower as a temporary structure for the 1889 World's Fair. Initially rejected by the French public, it is now the most visited fee-charging monument in the world.
Some months ago I wrote about our going to a 3-day trip to see NIN’s concert there. We visited a few things there. The weather was wonderful so we could have a long walk through the world-famous Pere Lachaise cemetery, where Jim Morrison was buried. I took a few pictures of that day… here they are…
First thing one has to see in Paris, I suppose, is the Eiffel Tower, especially because it wasn’t very far from our youth hostel. That’s the view we had while eating our sandwiches… I regret that Paris couldn’t afford to paint their buses another colour than the traditional Londonian red! Red buses for my beloved London, and nowhere else!
Le Grand Palais, where we saw an exposition on Egypt on the last day of our trip...
The same day, for dinner, we went to eat a delicious Couscous in a nice Algerian place not far from Place Pigalle and Le Moulin Rouge… That’s one of the best couscous place I’ve ever been to!
The day after, we went to The Pere Lachaise Cemetary and had a long walk there as it was sunny and not cold at all. There are very old tombs and many of them are quite particular, genuine and even spooky sometimes!
This one I found spooky… there was only a small space to look into it, that’s why I used my camera to see what was inside… the view of that abandoned dusty child-angel appalled me …The burial dates were rather old too… It made me feel strange to think that no one has visited that place for a long time, maybe decades… it makes the place feel quite desolate.
Actually, this cemetery really looks like a Necropolis… I don’t know how to explain this strange impression I have when I have the opportunity to visit it… It is as if those older tombs formed a real city.. and in a way, they give life back to those who have been buried here.
Chopin's Grave.......
I found this frame funny, as it stood empty in such a place… so we had to find a way to enliven it a little!
That’s all for now Folks!!! I hope you’ll take time to have a look at those pictures, and that you’ll like them!
Originally intended as a temporary structure for the World's Fair of 1889, the Eiffel Tower is widely recognized as one of the engineering marvels of the modern world. For 41 years, it reigned as the tallest manmade structure in the world. Initially, it was met with resistance. Novelist Guy de Maupassant claimed the reason he ate in the restaurant inside the tower regularly, was because it was the one place in Paris where he couldn’t see it.
Gradually it won over the people, and now it is recognized worldwide as a symbol of the city of lights.
Stunningly beautiful, especially when lit up at night, it is mindbogglingly huge. However, it can be a bit difficult to admire the beauty as one stands beneath it, as one is constantly jostled and bombarded by trinket-sellers. Keychains, scarfs, postcards, squeaky toys- we fought them all off.
Until one guy came up and said “Hey lady, you want some bling-bling?”
In his hand was a glass figure, elegant in its simplicity, capturing the essence of the romantic tower.
Then he pressed a button, and it started flashing, alternating blue, green, pink. From understated elegance to gaudy brilliance, just like that.
I, of course, had to have one. Now you can too! Stands about 7 inches tall, flashy base included, but batteries aren't.
See contest rules here.
last night totally owned. We woke up at 3:45am to shower and get ready for Paris. I ran around the block to get my blood pumping. it was quiet and peaceful, and the sun was setting. after the quick shower, the taxi picked us up at 4:30am. we got dropped at the waterloo station around central Londres. lol I ended up getting pulled to the side and searched, and so was my bag (maybe it was my beard) because Faraaz's bag along with everyone elses went through fine.
We got ourselfs some cheap breakfast and Costa cafe, and a typical tourist guide to Paris. We boarded the Eurostar very excited and pumped knowing we would be in Paris in just 2 and a half hours. we pulled out the map and circled our destination. first being Stade de France. I went on for about 30 mins before I fell asleep on my seat.
It was so awsome just stepping out of the train. everything around us was in a totally different language. Everyone was speaking something we had no clue of. it totally rocked though. Greeted in French our journey began. we were lucky anough that the majority spoke english lol. I dont know where to start right now.
The subway system was very...hmm lets say exegerated lol. there was double decker subway trains, and double the coaches we see back in England. stations posted every 500 square meter with each other.
those tiny specs up at the arch, are people!. thats how huge it is
We took our first trip to Stade de France, I guess it was one of Faraaz's dream or something..It wasnt bad, it wasnt my thing though. We bought individual tour tickets in french, we followed the mob outside the stadiums museum because we simply didnt know any better lol. half-way through the tour, we discovered we boarded the wrong one!. lol the tour lady started speaking to us in French and she told us we were suppost to be with another group :-p, but the hell with it anyways. we were already 15 mins into the tour.
I have to say though, the most exciting point of the tour, was when the doors to the changing room were opened. Im not into soccer much, but it was a pretty exciting feeling sitting down on the bench where there was once a great bunch of players on. knowing that they were once in the presence.
we headed down for lunch now. Faraaz like always was a bit too picky about his food choices. so we lost some time there. We dined in at the Le Deville, a mile off the Arch of Triumph. about 4-6 times bigger than our great Marble Arch here. we did some quick shopping and headed towards the eiffel tower. it started to rain and thunderstorm, after dodging the raininess, we just gave in and soaked ourselfs.
People treated us pretty equal, I found the French of my stay very pleasent. Most spoke English and didnt mind helping us at all with instructions, some even went a few extra steps to draw us maps and get us translators and things. I loved my stay, hope to be back in my next trip to Europe. Its a place you really must see with your own eyes, I cant really describe it. it fucking rocked though!
Marais means swamp, and apparently the area used to be a swamp, before it was drained in the seventeenth century. It then became a fashionable district for the nobility until the rise of Versailles. The brief boom that the area experienced left the neighborhood with a lot of wonderful seventeenth century buildings, one of which houses the Musee de Chatelet—a small museum that tells the history of Paris. Because the museum was smaller than the more famous galleries, it didn’t get as much tourist traffic, and even on a Sunday there was plenty of room to breath. The downside of this, however, meant that there were no signs in English, and a lot of the time I had to guess what it was we were looking at. The museum had a lot of random things in it; my favorite exhibit was a collection of old French shop signs. Apparently merchants in the olden days would advertise by hanging a big picture of whatever it was they were selling. This is all well and good when the wine merchant hangs a bottle of wine outside his shop, but there were some really bizarre ones. My favorite was a surgeon whose sign was a huge bronze hand with a tumor on it.
The museum went through different centuries in Paris. Each century had a room that was decorated as if from the time period. Apparently the French were really into porcelain and print wallpaper. There was also an involved exhibit on the French revolution and the rise of Napoleon, but I could only understand about half of it.
After the museum we stopped into a patisserie for thick slices of quiche and a French dessert (pain au chocolat for me and a fruit tart for Katie, delicious) and then we walked around the district for a bit, which housed the Jewish quarter of Paris. There are no Jews in London, which has been a little strange for me. I’m not exactly a practicing Jew (I didn’t even Bat Mitzvah), but London has made me feel very Jewish because I’m the only one around. I can’t say I felt more at home in the Jewish quarter of Paris, but it was refreshing to see challah in shop windows. I had missed hamintashin (spelling?) season in London, and we tried to find some in the Jewish boulangeries that lined the streets, but we couldn’t find any.
Katie wanted to see a production of La Cantatrice Chauve that was playing, so we hopped the metro to get to the theater to buy tickets for that night. When we got to the theater, however, it was closed, so that was too bad. We spent the rest of the time walking around the area where the theater had been, which took us into French Chinatown. Katie had heard that they have Coco Cola Black in France, a new version of Coke that is coffee flavored. We decided to try and find it to taste, but everywhere we went didn’t have it. We kept seeing signs for it, but every restaurant, tabac, and convenience store that we tried didn’t stock it. After a while we followed the large boulevards out of Chinatown and ended up at the Place de la Republique. Apparently there were riots there while we were staying in Paris, but I didn’t hear about that until after we had left.
We decided to consult the guidebook, and realized that the Musee D’orsay wouldn’t be opened on Monday. We rushed to the metro to try and get there, but we arrived just as it was closing.
It was too bad to miss the museum, but the metro ride had taken us to the oh so artsy left bank (the most elegant neighborhood in Paris, according to the guidebook). We walked around some more, and ended up by the Sorbonne, which had armed guards stationed on every corner. Probably because of the riots and civil unrest that we didn’t see, but I can’t be sure. We went up to the Pantheon, which is a large church on the top of the hill in the Latin Quarter. They were having a daffodil festival there in honor of Marie Curie. There was a parade and people on stilts and unicycles, all carrying daffodils. The Pantheon itself was covered in Daffodils, and there were even snowmen with daffodil faces. We each bought a daffodil, which they were selling to benefit Cancer research. We decided to go out for a fancy French meal that night, and settled on a Brasserie that our guidebook recommended called Le Petit Prince. It wasn’t wildly expensive, and the food was amazing, although I can’t be sure exactly what I ordered because the menu was in French. We both went for things that we’d never tried before. Katie had a Camembert crème brulee, which was amazing, and I tasted rabbit for the first time. I actually really liked it; I just had to think of it as a mystery meat called lapin rather than an innocent bunny. Katie had veal for an entrée as well, so the meal was not very PETA friendly, though very very tasty.
Because we couldn’t go see a show that night we decided to do the Eifel Tower instead. The tower looked gorgeous, lit up in the night (it’s actually quite ugly when you see it in the day time) but going up it made me uncomfortable. I don’t mind crowds, and I’m not afraid of heights. I think it was just my tourism anxiety kicking in. I didn’t hear French spoken once around the tower. The view from the top really was excellent though, and they don’t call Paris the city of lights for nothing. I kept thinking how amazing it must have been to see that thing when it was first built. It’s still amazing in 2006, but in 1889 it would have seemed like a miracle that anything could be so tall.
That night we were exhausted from all the walking around and heavy eating. We were planning to get dessert after the tower (we had been too full at the restaurant, and it’s a shame to miss a day of dessert in Paris) but in the end we just went back and went to sleep. We missed so many things that day—the play, the Museum, but we had seen so much of Paris that it was worth it. I’m glad we got to see so much by foot because it gave me a feel for how the city was laid out. That night I conked out as soon as my head touched the pillow, it had been a long day.
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