Paris, day 4

We woke up about half an hour earlier than usual to make it to Eiffel in time. We were there 15 min before opening but the queue was so long we thought to postpone it again and started walking west towards the huge park Bois de Boulogne through a wealthy 16th district of the city. We paused a couple of times, to take some photos at Palais de Chaillot, to have some coffee and to buy something to eat in the park.

I've read that the park is one of the most insecure areas in Paris by night (as it appears also in The Da Vinci Code) but by day time it was beautiful. Might be that the very spot of the park we visited isn't that bad even by night. We sat on a bench by a lake shore to eat some baguettes (yes, very lot of them were consumed during our stay in Paris). A couple of joggers passed us by. The place was very calm. Though cars could be heard from roads crossing the park the contrast to inner city's noise and rush was huge. It was a very enjoyable tranquill moment.

From the park we took a metro to Arc de Triumph. The queue looked quite bad (we turned back the previous day because of a similar queue) but we got to the counters within 15 minutes. The view from the top (49,5 metres above street) was great. It must've been quite a work to build the 12 avenues that start from Place Charles De Gaulle/Etoile surrounding Arc De Triumphe. The shot was taken towards the business district La Defense which has quite different architecture than the city centre. As you can see there's plenty of skyscrapers and 110 metres high La Grande Arche.

After lunch (more filled baguettes) I walked along Seine and explored Quartier Latin. There were nice narrow alleys and streets. I consumed a lot of water as I walked altogether about 4-5 kilometres within 1,5 hours, the temperature being about +30 C. Meanwhile my girlfriend was buying some clothes as we were about to run out of clean shirts.