More from that same trip we revisited a couple of weeks ago. (All photos are mine.) The Eiffel Tower peeks out at you from all over Paris. No wonder; it's the tallest structure in the city at 1,063 feet, about the same height as an 81-floor building. It was built in 1889 as the entrance arch to that year's World's Fair, surpassing the Washington Monument as the tallest human-made structure in the world (a title it held until the Chrysler Building squeaked past it in 1930). This early sketch of the tower shows its proposed scale by "stacking" other landmarks, including Notre Dame and the Statue of Liberty, beside it.
Some things are big and that's about it, but the tower is gorgeous. Day or night, it's obvious why it's such a well-loved landmark.
The view from the top...
Hovers identify some of the sights.
The Eiffel Tower has a website, featuring tons of pictures. If you have a reasonably robust computer, you might enjoy their series of HD panoramas, which allow you to pan around, zoom in, and optionally display the names of various landmarks (Thanks, tour-eiffel.fr, for making me look like I knew what I was looking at!) There's a link to an interesting Google Cultural Institute page with some historical slideshows, and there are some fun little videos on the main page, of fireworks and lightshows (the fireworks one starts slow, because they're counting down to the year 2000, so give it a couple of minutes before you conclude that the French don't know how to do fireworks -- they do!)
Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share part of their evening around a virtual kitchen table with kossacks who are caring and supportive of one another. So bring your stories, jokes, photos, funny pics, music, interesting videos, and so forth. We would also appreciate links—including quotations—to diaries, news stories, and books that you think this community would appreciate.
Please note that pie fights will be unwelcome in this community, just as in most other series at DKos.
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