Our second day in London started at the Tower of London. I'd had a rough night having woken at 3am & not being able to get back to sleep. The jet lag was to blame but I wasn't ready to let it ruin the holiday. We arrived not long after opening to avoid the crowds.
We waited just inside the gate for the next tour guide. The Tower is guarded by Yeomen who are all ex-army. This has been tradition for a very long time. These days the Yeomen are chosen for their story telling abilities & wit. Our guy (above) was a great story teller & most certainly had a sense of humour.
Our friendly Yeoman pointed out all the interesting places in the Tower such as the Tower Green & Queen's House (above) & the White Tower (below) The White Tower is the place where the royal armoury is stored.
There's quite the collection of armour in the White Tower. Henry the VIII seems to have the most items in the collection. It's all very oversized for someone who was small of stature (as well as other things).
The crown jewels are stored in Waterloo Barracks (below) within the walls of the tower. The jewels are all very flashy but you aren't allowed to take photos of them. Lots of bling I can assure you.
The Jewels are guarded heavily by a number of different military types including the ones wearing the busbies (below).
From the walls of the tower you can see a few of the London sights including the ridiculous gherkin (below).
Julie met us for lunch outside the tower before taking the ferry (below) along the Thames to Greenwich.
The ferry took us under the Tower Bridge and past many of London's tourist sights.
At Greenwich we stopped at the markets (because that's what women like to do when on tour). There was all kind of local handy crafts. The typical kind of rubbish at most markets the world over.
I knew little of Greenwich before we arrived there. I knew the world's 0 deg meridian ran through it & was named after it, but that's it.
Greenwich is home to a building called Queen's House (above). I'm not sure why because she doesn't live there. Greenwich University is right across the road. Both are pictured below.
The big landmark in Greenwich is the Royal Observatory (below).
The main game with the Royal Observatory is the bench mark for the Prime Meridian (Zero degrees latitude).
All the bench marks have the current version & the older technology. Below is the older Prime Meridian, above, the flashy new monument.
The bench mark for world time is also at Greenwich. The atomic clock lives inside one of the buildings at the Observatory.
Again, the old world clock is still on show (below) along with measurement bench marks for length & sea level.
There is a complex sundial (below) that is calibrated for all times of year. It's great that they've created a piece of art in the process.
The observatory has a planetarium & a big telescope (below).
Time to leave Greenwich. It was a pleasant surprise for me & I had never even contemplated going there. Hat's off to our local guide, Julie.
A few more sights in the afternoon including HMS Belfast (above) from the ferry and Cleopatra's needle (below).
We stopped for a while for a beer at The Porterhouse, one of many pubs along the Thames. Later we had dinner before going our separate ways. The girls went to a show (Jersey Boys) & I went for a wander to take in the sights at night.
Trafalgar Square (above) was my first target. It looks very different at night time.
Westminster Abbey (above) takes on a very sinister appearance. The caked on soot doesn't help its image.
The Houses of Parliament are definately more photogenic at night.
Even the London Eye has some aesthetic qualities at night.
The 3am start had finally caught up with me so I caught the tube back to the hotel, had a shower & crashed for the night. Kerri came back not long after. Tomorrow we'd be on the move again.
We lined up to be one of the first groups to go up the Eiffel Tower. We took the lift all the way to the top of the tower. Up there you can see most of Paris. Unfortunately the smog cuts the visibility back some. Looking into the sun is something of a trial as well (below).
Looking away from the sun we could see a number of Paris land marks. The Arc de Triomphe was pretty easy to spot.
The River Seine looks very different from high in the sky. 
We descended to the lower floors & found that with less smog to peer through that the view was in fact better. The modern business district can be seen behind Le Palais de Chaillot (below). 
If you get really keen you can throw some coins in a telescope and get an even closer look at the sights.
Reluctantly we came down from the tower & set about more sightseeing. We walked across the concourse of le Palais de Chaillot & up to the Arc de Triomphe (below). We sat there for a while & watched the near car crashes for a while.
After a short stint under the arch, we set off down the Champs Elysees (below). We had lunch along the way at one of the many cafes.
It's a fairly decent walk from the Arc de Triomphe to the Louvre. There are many public parks & ponds along the way. The halfway is marked by Place de la Concorde (below).
It's very popular with tourist & local alike.
Eventually we reached the Louvre (below).
We sat on the edge of the fountain pond next to the Louvre entrance for a while to rest our feet & cool off a bit.
We decided to split up. Kerri & Julie went on a bit of a shopping stroll near Notre Dame checking out street vendors (above) while I went into the Louvre to see some of the exhibits I couldn't find 10 years ago when I was last there.
I was very keen to find the Egyptian exhibits but found the Greek sculptures along the way including the famous Venus de Milo (above) with her missing arms. Not sure why it's so popular myself.
In the end I did manage to fine the Egyptian stuff. The Sphinx (above) was the first sculpture I found.
The Egyptian treasure was spread over two floors. The exhibits varied widely from the black stone sculpture of Ramessis II (above) to beautifully painted & carved reliefs (below).
The statue above stood out thanks to the gilding. The one below stood out for a different reason. I like to call him Sleazy Sanchez. He was centuries ahead of his time with style. This look didn't really take off until the 1970s.
Having seen what I'd come to see, it was time to go. Then it was just the matter of how to get out. I fumbled around for a good 15 mins before I finally found reached the entrance. I'd seen it plenty of times but couldn't get to it. The map I had with me didn't help at all.
Finally I smelt the sweet smell of freedom! The arc out the front of the Louvre is called Arc de Triomphe de Carrousel (below).
I met up with the girls and we set off again. We were all a bit weary & hot so we decided to head toward the hotel but not before checking out the Patheon (below). The one in Rome is far more impressive by the way.
We cheated a little & caught the Metro most of the way back to the hotel. We walked the last couple of hundred metres past a prime Eiffel Tower view point (below).
We kicked back in the room for a couple of hours before having dinner at a restaurant nearby. By the time we'd finished it was getting dark so we collected our cameras to go photograph the Eiffel Tower lit up at night.
It's an impressive monument lit up. At 8pm & 9pm the tower sparkles for 5 minutes. The normally yellow lights are overpowered by flahing bright white ones.
No Eiffel shoot is complete without putting oneself in it.
It's quite a pleasant trip over all. By the time we'd navigated the Metro (like the Tube in London) we arrived at the hotel around 11.30am local time & ditched our bags with reception.
Many of the bridges over the Seine bear the markings of opulent Napoleon times (below). 
We grabbed a baguette from a street vendor & ate it in a surprisingly quiet garden at the back of Notre Dame. From the park, the famous flying buttresses of the grand cathedral are evident (below).
After lunch we lined up at the side of the cathedral in order to climb the towers. We were lined up for 20 minutes or so but were entertained by a street performer who wore a scary mask, snuck up on unsuspecting passersby, scaring the living daylights out of them.
After climbing seemingly endless flights of spiral stairs, we reached the top. There are plenty of gargoyles to be seen from street level, but the ones at the top of the tower are much more interesting (above & below).
The view across Paris is pretty much uninterrupted as well. Montmartre (below) on the hill in the distance was easy enough to see despite the smog. 
We descended the spirals to the ground and went into the cathedral.
We caught the next river boat back to Place de la Concorde. After some tricky traffic dodging, we found a traffic island where we could take some photos.
There was a festival of some sort at Montmartre. They had live music & lots of food & craft stalls. There were also lots of people! We found a restaurant to have dinner & a couple of glasses of red.
