A bird’s-eye view of Paris and a bus trip through three countries

The weather is fairly dry today, but a bit on the cool side.

After gathering everyone this morning, we took our bus to the Eiffel Tower – planned to take up the entire morning.

As Dan said, he was fully prepared to be underwhelmed by the tower, but that didn’t happen. It lives up to its hype.

Most of us went all the way to the top and spent most of the morning there. Birdie went up to the second level, about 200 feet up, but stayed there.

Poolman and Dan at the top

After spending the better part of two hours on the tower, we returned to one of the lower levels for lunch at a very nice restaurant there.

Birdie and Ron at lunch

We had wine and water to drink. The meal consisted of a smoked salmon appetizer (or entre, as they call it in Paris), roast chicken (again) and scalloped potatoes for the main course, and an outstanding cheesecake for dessert. The cheesecake was garnished with a small, orange fruit that we could not identify. Kumquat? Persimmon? Any ideas?

After lunch, we got on the bus for the trip to Arnhem. We started in France; drove through Belgium; and ended up in the Netherlands. We got in around 9 o’clock. After getting squared away in our room, we retired to the bar and restaurant for beer and sandwiches.

Tomorrow, we start two days of concentrating on the Operation Market-Garden (A Bridge Too Far).