Eiffel Tower by Day/Night

The Eiffel Tower has been the symbol of Paris.  For first timers like me, I believe no trip to Paris would be complete without meeting the Iron Lady.  It's about time to pay it a visit.  We got off at Champ de Mars Tour Eiffel train station and followed the sign to the tower.  Before going there, we stopped by a cafe (Ribe Cafe) near the area for some breakfast.  It was quite pricey (around Euro22, that's Euro11 per person plus tip) but, ok, we charged it to experience as we already need our dose of caffeine. :)

Our breakfast at Ribe Cafe

After breakfast, we proceeded to the area of the tower.  After a few minutes walk, we've finally met.  Since it's still too early, the tower isn't open yet, but we got a chance to take some pictures without much people in the background.

Welcome to Eiffel Tower

Eiffel Tower

We stayed a bit in the park.  Beware of scammers though, we fell into it (sadly)!  Some would have you sign up to help a non-profitable organization (I forgot what kind of organization that is) and ask you to give donation, they will tell you any amount would do.  Once you have your name signed and give them less than Euro10 (we gave Euro5 each), they will tell you that the minimum donation is Euro10 per person.  Hah! There goes "any amount".  When we heard that, we asked them to just erase our names and give us the Euro10 back.  They wouldn't and instead just accepted what we gave them.

We don't have plans of going up the tower, but we wanted to see it all lit up.  So, we left the area and gone back early evening.  I believe we got back past 7PM but it wasn't until around 8PM when the tower lit up (the sky was just getting dark at that time).

The lights show started at 8PM (it's repeated every hour on the hour).  It really looked as though the tower is sparkling.
 

Eiffel Tower during the lights show

We just finished the lights show and called it a day for us.  It was a long one and we need to rest our tired feet for the next day's adventure.