Earlier this week I had the opportunity to visit again the City of Light, and even though I had visited Paris quite a few times in recent years, this was the first time I climbed the Eiffel Tower. Once you cover the 674 steps needed to get to the second level, you are rewarded with a really nice view of the Champ de Mars on one side and the Palais de Chaillot and the Gardens of the Trocadéro on the other. I took this opportunity to take some aerial pictures, and one of the views I liked the most was the one showing the Champ de Mars with people scattered admiring the amazing iron structure designed by Gustave Eiffel, erected in 1889. I will always remember the amazement I felt when I saw the structure for the first time.

I feel very lucky living in Europe, and now I feel even luckier living so close to Paris. Knowing I lived close to the French border, I knew that Paris was very close by train, and last weekend I had the opportunity to try out how close it was by taking the TGV to the Gare de Lyon (and it was indeed only a couple of hours). I have been in Paris several times, and there are plans I repeat over and over: taking the metro to Hotel de Ville, crossing "Île de la Cité", stopping by Notre Dame, and then continuing to walk through Rue de Rivoli until I reach Palais Royal. Then I go to le Jardin des Tuileries, continue to "Place de la Concorde", and then I walk all the way up through "Avenue des Champs-Élysées" until I get to the "Place Charles de Gaulle", where "l'Arc de Triomphe" is located. I took this picture at the end of my walk there.

I still remember how I felt the first time I visited the Eiffel Tower in Paris (it was the same sensation I experienced when I visited the Taj Mahal): a landmark that you have seen so many times in pictures, postcards, movies, books, etc., but this time the place appears right in front of you, and you can almost touch it from a distance. Every time I go to Paris, I try to go to the Trocadero metro stop to get a really good view of the Eiffel Tower. Once, I was playing with my camera and I set up a long exposure while the tower was glittering, and that's how I got this shot.

This year (09) I went to visit my dear friend T. in Paris, and we went together to the Fete de la musique. But the year before, we also did it, and on a very sunny day next to the Eiffel Tower, she took this beautiful picture.

The first time I went to Paris in the autumn of 04 with M, the weather was amazing with really clear blue skies. I took this picture in Montmartre and I still enjoy looking at the colors and the background here :).