Summer at the Eiffel - Eiffel Tower
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Paris is known as the City of Light, and my advice is to see the Eiffel Tower at night. It has beautiful, dramatic lighting, plus a fun “sparkle” lights that run for 5 minutes on the hour.
This advice sounds pretty easy, right?
It is, but there is a little catch: most of us Western visitors to Paris come in the summer, and geographically, Paris is located at 48.8 degrees North Latitude.
“Huh…North Latitude? Why do I care about that?”
Remember that stuff from school about the orbit of the Earth around the Sun and how the Earth is tilted and all that? Long story short, much of Europe is further North than where most of us in the USA live, so their summer days are longer because that ’tilt stuff’ results in longer days and a later sunset.
Sunset in Paris on the Summer Solstice (longest day) is at 9:58pm this year…that’s more than an hour later than New York City or Chicago. Naturally, a twilight follows, and this all means that the first viewing of the Eiffel Tower’s “Sparkle” lights under full darkness isn’t until 11:00pm in the summer.
Granted, 11pm doesn’t really sound too “late”, but we still have to go home to our hotel, and many of us have probably been getting up pretty early to be at places like the Louvre when it opens at 9am, plus we’ve been on our feet much of the day. It can be a bit much.
It just means that you might want to think ahead a bit as to when you want to schedule this on your visit. Maybe avoid doing this late night just prior to an extra-early morning.
Similarly, if you’re planning on taking the “just right” Siene River Cruise, you’ll want to know what time sunset’s going to be too. In the summer, that may very well be the 10pm boat instead of the 8:30pm departure.
On the web, you can use www.sunrisesunset.com to find out what time sunset will be for your visit. From there, you can plan accordingly.
Of course, the alternative is to visit Paris again, in the winter when it gets dark nice and early!
-hh
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