At the end of our second day, the monument we'd walked to--and the universally recognized symbol of Paris, the fin de siècle, the prospect of mixing art and industry that would feed into modernity--was of course la Tour Eiffel, the Eiffel Tower, celebrating its 130th year.
Approaching it in the hour before sunset, from the south, we were just astonished by its dimensions: 300m tall--more than 1,000 ft.--and yet because of its graceful refiguring of the concept of 'pyramid,' with lines from the four corners of a square meeting at a tip, and its lattice structure, weighing only 7,300 (metric) tons.
We marveled at the geometries from below while awaiting our lift and enjoying espressos on the cooling evening. Once we reached the deuxième étage, walking around the circuit of the exterior we were treated to truly breathtaking views of the city on all sides, lights bright and clear on a cold, mostly-dry night. (On the bottom left you can make out Sacré Coeur, topping Montmartre, all the way to the left.) Une ville de lumière, vraiment!
The real surprise and source of wonder, though--I lost track of how many times I stopped to curse Eiffel for his vision--was the structure itself, lit from within and continuously unfolding in perfectly predictable but endlessly fascinating shapes. We got to see much of that by deciding to skip the lift and take the stairs down: all 674 of them, joined by some playful breezes, a bit of delightfully spitting rain, and several other hardy souls. (We passed rather fewer people walking up.)
Once back down from a monument whose own website calls it "a Tower of Babel" (?!), we taxi'd back to Montmartre, where we enjoyed a dinner ad lib.--at the unlikely-named Café Prout (it ... means 'fart')--and wended our way through streets whose geometries would have confounded la Tour's and vice versa. But hence their happy marriage, a Cupid-and-Psyche story producing endless Voluptas, 'Pleasure,' for the city's visitors--who, depending on level of cool, seem already at home.
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