Eiffel Night

We left Zurich yesterday morning on a 9:30 train bound for Paris.  When planning the trip I had originally thought that we would wait until later in the day so that we could explore Zurich, and Zurich looked interesting, but we ultimately had to decide between time spent in Zurich and time spent in Paris, and with limited time and with J.D. meeting us in Paris, Paris won out.  Zurich, maybe next time.

We were in Switzerland long enough to come to appreciate the Swiss rail system, which is more, shall we say, efficient than its counterpart in Italy.  The stations are nicer, the trains are nicer, everything is clearly marked, and the trains leave on time.  We saw why yesterday morning as we sat on the platform waiting for our train.  There was a train leaving on the same track thirty minutes before, and there was a female conductor standing outside the train, right across from a little electrical box.  One family got too close to the little box and she immediately made them move, and looked prepared to defend the box with her life.  I couldn’t tell if the box contained a clock (and wasn’t brave or stupid enough to try to find out), but she kept checking it, and when it was departure time pushed a button, looked down the track and blew her whistle, then got on the train and it left seconds later.

Our four-hour trip to Paris was smooth and we arrived at 1:30.  We had dinner reservations for 8:00 p.m., and I thought we might have time to see something during the afternoon, but J.D. was having lunch with Carey Pohanka, our colleague from St. Christopher’s, so once we checked into our hotel Shelley and I walked up to a café on the corner and had lunch consisting of French onion soup (which the French call “onion soup”) and beer.  Not a bad way to spend a Friday afternoon.  Right beside the café was a place where Parisians could pay at an automated booth and rent a bike and go.  We watched people take bikes and return bikes, and it seemed to work well, and we decided that we should get a franchise and place it in Lucca, where it would throw the bike rental industry into disarray.

Our hotel is located down the street from the Pantheon, which brought back memories even though I’d never been there.  In seventh grade French class each of us had to do a report on a Parisian building or monument, and my report was on the Pantheon.  It is best known as the burial place for famous French citizens such as Rousseau, Voltaire, Madame Curie, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, and Louis Braille, whose invention bears his name.  It also has artwork depicting great moments in French history such as St. Genevieve saving Paris from Attila the Hun, and is the site of the original Foucault’s Pendulum.  I believe I got an A on my seventh-grade report—if only I’d remembered all that without having to look it up in a guidebook.

Our featured event for the day was dinner at Au Bon Accueil, a restaurant located close to the Eiffel Tower, recommended to us by Cindy and Mark as their absolute favorite place to eat in Paris.  They recommended that we ask for an outside table because you have a great view of the Tower, and that the reservation be late enough that you can see the Tower lit after dark.  I had requested reservations last weekend by e-mail for 8 p.m. Friday night (the restaurant is not open on weekends), and gotten confirmation early in the week.

Of course the evening wouldn’t have been complete without some drama.  I hadn’t slept well in Zurich, so took a nap before we went, and asked J.D. to figure out directions.  We left at 7:00 p.m. and walked two blocks to the Metro station.  The Paris Metro system is very good, but unlike Rome or D.C.’s systems, there are like 14 different lines, and it is not particularly easy to get to a station on one line from a station on another, but J.D. had plotted out our trip, and it was very easy—until we got off the Metro.

We got up on the street, and when I asked J.D. which way we were going, he didn’t know.  He had plotted directions to get us to the Tower rather than the restaurant, but we didn’t see the Tower, and we thought that if we were close we probably would see it.  We also weren’t worried because J.D.’s phone would be able to find directions to the restaurant, until he informed us that he couldn’t get an Internet connection.  We walked close to a couple of restaurants hoping to pick up a signal, but nothing.  I knew the name of the restaurant and had its website, but of course none of us had written down the address.  We still had 40 minutes, so we weren’t panicked (one of us might have been panicked, or at least annoyed).

We walked up a block and could now at least see the Eiffel Tower, so we walked toward it, hoping we could get an internet signal and check the restaurant website.  At we got close, Shelley got a signal but couldn’t connect to the website.  It was 7:40.

We decided to find a cab and hoped the driver would know the address of the restaurant, but at the cabstand close to the Tower we asked three or four cab drivers and none of them had any clue.  With ten minutes before we were due at dinner, I saw an information booth underneath the Tower and asked if they could find the address.  They did and told me we were close enough to walk, but we went back to the taxi line, gave the driver the address, and made it to Au Bon Accueil with three minutes to spare before our reservation time.

Au Bon Accueil is located on a side street a couple of blocks from the Eiffel Tower, on the same street as part of the American University of Paris, and from the outdoor tables there is a great view of the Tower.  It didn’t start to get dark until 9:30 p.m., but once it did the Tower lit up and the view was magnificent.  During the summer at the top of the hour the 20,000 lights on the Tower flash and sparkle in a light show for five minutes, and watching that was a great way to enjoy dessert.

After dinner we walked back to the Eiffel Tower and found a party going on in the grassy parts of the Parc du Champs de Mars that runs between the Tower and the Ecole Militaire.  There were hundreds, maybe even several thousand people stretched out on the grass having fun, drinking wine and waiting for the 11:00 p.m. light show.  We walked the length of the park and back to the Metro, glad we had found the restaurant and glad for the experience.  The Eiffel Tower is impressive during the day, but seeing it at night is spectacular.