Dream Trip 2008: February

Great Travel Moment

The only thing better than the Eiffel Tower is the Eiffel Tower at night. When in Paris, you can't miss the Eiffel Tower, so we took the elevator to the top one evening. Luckily, we're so slow that we were there when the sun set, too. Seeing the vibrant oranges and pinks of the sky over the classic buildings of Paris was a sight I'll never forget. To one side we could see blocks of buildings identical to the layout on our maps, as if we were sitting on top of one very detailed tourist booklet. Every once in a while there would be a unique figure, a gold dome, the Arc de Triomphe, a green garden. Of course, there were a lot of tourists. But there were also French couples, up on the Tower for a romantic evening out, a touch of authenticity to the cliche attraction. As we got to the bottom, we got one more surprise: against the black sky, the warmly lit Tower began to sparkle brilliantly with thousands of flashing lights. To me, they looked like diamonds.