When in Paris

Going to Paris everyone had so many suggestions on what to do, where to go, and how to deal with the French Culture, but one that I highly suggest more people do, especially if the weather is nice, is a picnic in the park in front of the Eiffel Tower. We decided to be able to accomplish all we could in the short amount of time we had in Paris, that we should do the hop on hop off bus. At the end of the route was the Eiffel Tower, which we perfectly ended up at right at sunset. We thought it would be best to climb the Eiffel Tower stairs, which although it sounds bad, ended up not being bad. After we were finished walking around and reading about the towers history we headed down to put together our picnic.

The park around the Eiffel tower was very nice, for those people who wanted more of a private experience they went to the side parks, which still had a view, just not as many people. Then there were the people like us, who wanted to be more engaged, more in the public sphere of the park. We found a great Italian restaurant which I grabbed a take out box of pasta salad, bread, and wine. As we approached the park we spent awhile trying to pick out the perfect place to set up for the night. We wanted to make sure there were other people around so we weren’t completely isolated, but wanted some sort of privacy. This public park had become a place where both locals and tourist come together to relax, enjoy the good weather, and to enjoy a national monument.

As I started to look more into the history of the Eiffel tower and the reason for why it was built, it became more apparent to me that this monument started as a tourist attraction at the 1889 World’s Fair and is still today. This world fair was to celebrate the French Revolution, which the Eiffel Tower also reflects (http://www.archiplanet.org/buildings/Eiffel_Tower.html) and the surrounding park, Champs de Mars, was used as military grounds for exercise and parades, which also shows the nationalism of the Eiffel Tower (http://www.atkielski.com/PhotoGallery/Paris/Eiffel/EiffelChampSmall.html). The history of the Eiffel Tower seems to often be forgotten as it stands as an icon for Paris, but many would not relate it to the World’s Fair or the surrounding area as once being a military camp. With over 6 million visitors a year funneling into this area, the Eiffel Tower continues to be one of the most popular monuments in the world. In comparison to other popular monuments like the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower’s combination of the monument and public space in the middle of the city brings a more cultural affect to the area.Tourist like ourselves were there to visit the icon that we see in pictures, and what pops up in most of our minds when we hear of Paris, while the locals were there to show their nationalism whether they were thinking this when deciding to go for a night picnic or not. As we sat there and enjoyed this tourist attraction, we were also able to experience the French culture. This public space in the city of Paris was a common ground for people. I saw while I was at the top of the Eiffel tower, that the city was very dense and had miles after miles of buildings, that were expanding upward rather then outward. There seemed to have been little green areas or open spaces like the one around the Eiffel Tower, this just showed me that this park was well respected, that the Parisians took great pride in one of their national monuments by creating an area for all to be able to use and enjoy.