Everything Eiffel Tower

I used to scorn the Eiffel Tower, finding it incredibly tacky and touristy. The restaurant has always been ridiculously overpriced and I much preferred the view from the Samaritaine. I went up only once, during my first trip and disdained the thing ever since.
But then something happened. I was crossing the Pont Neuf one night when I looked up and saw the Eiffel Tower twinkling. I was utterly charmed. Now when I'm walking around Paris, I can't help but look for it. I know it isn't always within view, but without it, the Parisian skyline just isn't the same.
(Hard to believe it was considered a blight on the landscape when it was being built; sort of the way the Pyramids of the Louvre appeared to recent detractors.)
At least half of all the pictures I take every trip are of the Eiffel Tower. Many of those appear to be the same picture, taken at the same time of day, in the same spot. The Pont Neuf isn't actually the best place to take a shot--the Eiffel Tower appears a tinkertoy in the distance--only there's something about it in the sunset that always makes me stop and sigh and click indiscriminately away.
It's like the cheesiest of chick flicks or obvious tear jerkers (think Love Story or The Way We Were). I know I shouldn't be taken in but I can't help myself.
Which is why I now have dozens of Eiffel Tower everything: earrings, erasers, t-shirts and watches, prints, postcards, scarves and berets, books, puzzles,  liqueur bottles and countless miniature towers, mousepads, keychains, coasters and cups, teatowels, cookie tins, a very cool cheese grater and giant wall sticker and of course, the inevitable snowglobes and fridge magnets. I could open a souvenir shop in my apartment--maybe call it Eiffel Tower EBay--and make enough to pay for my next trip to Paris.

Where to get everything Eiffel Tower
Interestingly enough, I've never found any souvenirs of the Eiffel Tower at the Eiffel Tower, where the shops are surprisingly lacklustre. The better shops are located along the rue Rivoli, across the Jardin de Tuilleries. 
But my favourite shops by far are the following:
Pylones, a very cool design shop with locations all over Paris. I go to the one on Ile St-Louis, where I found my cheese grater and one-of-a-kind keychains with multiple multi-coloured towers. 
Fragonard, a parfumeur where I've never bought perfume but have found these great little plates, hand-painted with the four seasons of the Eiffel Tower.(I don't even know if there's a word for these in English, but they're a catch-all for when you empty your pockets.)
The Swatch Shop in the Carrousel du Louvre for, what else, an Eiffel Tower Swatch.

Fans of the Dead

No, I'm not talking about Deadheads here but tourists, myself included, who like to visit graveyards. The first place I went to visit in Paris was not the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre but Cimetiere Pere Lachaise. I went looking for Oscar Wilde and when I asked directions from a friendly entrance guard, he laughed, saying he'd assumed I was looking for Jim Morrison. The rock star's grave is impossible to miss, surrounded as it is by fans, many of whom deny the singer's death but walk off with various mementos, including the stone head (which must have fit neatly in a backpack).
Wilde was the Morrison of his time with just as many groupies kissing his tomb. (There's now a small plexiglass sheet protecting the famous sculpture.) There's also a piece--think codpiece--missing from the naked angel headstone. 
 Pere Lachaise abounds with dead celebrities like Marcel Proust, Edith Piaf, Chopin and famed lovers, Heloise and Abelard. (I can't help but think that if this was run by Americans, there'd be a cafe just outside the gates with a souvenir shop selling guides to the graves. There's no reason this shouldn't be as well run as the garden in the Musee Rodin or any other public space but it just exemplifies the very Parisian attitude that begrudges the necessary tourists.) An afternoon in the cemetery is like a stroll through an eerie park, with tumbled down stones, forgotten graves and countless cats stalking through the overgrowth. By far the scariest feature is the toilet, so make a pit stop before you go. 

When I went to Versailles, I was more interested in finding the grave of my favourite American author than I was in visiting the palace. The guard had just gone when I entered, but I figured it couldn't be that hard to find a single grave. Two hours later I was leaving, frustrated and exhausted, when I ran into the guard finally returning from lunch. He knew right away who I was looking for and led me to Edith Wharton in a matter of minutes. Wharton has one of the biggest gravestones and also one of the few rented in perpetuity. I knew her story but wondered about the number of abandoned graves of children, with 'for rent' signs adorning them instead of flowers.
I've never visited Cimetiere du Montparnasse even though it houses such late luminaries as Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. The walk up Boulevard Montparnasse has nothing to recommend it, least of all the Tour Montparnasse which is vastly overrated and ugly. (Why go anywhere else but the Eiffel Tower for a view of the city?)
I finally made it to the Catacombes where entrance is restricted due to weather. There's only a small portion of the 3,000 kilometre tunnel, stuffed with the bones of 6 million people, available for viewing but it's enough. The claustrophobia factor was enough to make me want to leave upon entering, but unfortunately, once I descended, there was only one way out. Of course the place was musty and dripping with water and I worried about slipping and putting my hand against the wall to balance, with the horrid possibility of having a shower of bones come down upon me.  I was so relieved to reach the exit that I didn't even mind the guard searching through my purse. A pilfered bone was the last kind of souvenir I wanted to bring home from Paris.

Disappearing Shops

Each time I lose one of my favourite shops in Paris, I never know if it's because it's closed or I simply can't find it. I've learned that if I see something at a one-of-a-kind boutique, I better grab it. Because chances are, I am never going to find that boutique again. 
(On the other hand, whenever I've followed my own advice, that identical scarf is just down the street for a fraction of the price.)
I always assumed that the Samaritaine was such an integral part of the Parisian landscape, that it would always be there. The panoramic view from the rooftop was as breathtaking as that from the Eiffel tower and the store always stood as my landmark for navigating between the Left Bank and the Right. So imagine my dismay when it closed. The windows were still adorned, with only the tiniest sign to indicate anything was amiss. The concierge at my hotel commiserated with me but the Galeries Lafayette, even with a food hall as magnificent as Harrods, was hardly consolation. Although the free gift from the welcome desk helped somewhat, the discount card from the competing Printemps was a bit more of a comfort.
Paris has a number of quirky little cafe/postcard shops, all of which I've stumbled on by accident. The first, Les Petits Plus,  was originally located in the heart of the Marais. It had a selection of cool toys (and was where I discovered the wonderfully weird art of Michael Sowa). Then one year, it disappeared. I walked back and forth from street to street, looking over my notes from my previous year's travel journal. But I was lucky; it had merely relocated to another street. A trip later, not so lucky. It really had disappeared.
I took refuge in Images de Demain to escape the all pervading Parisian mist they call rain. On the main floor it appeared to just be a shop for postcards and posters but upstairs, where I'd gone just to search out their 'toilette', was a delightful hodgepodge of everything, including a charming cafe with a tastily erratic menu. So it cost 7 euros for a perilously thin slice of lemon poppy seed cake...it was delicious cake served up with a view of the Centre Georges Pompidou. But that pleasure too was only fleeting.
Brentanos was the American Bookstore that had been around for more than 100 years. I always popped in on my way to the Opera. But the shop that had survived the depression and two World Wars was done in by the present economy. Luckily there are two other shops to take its place, both of them on the rue Rivoli, which is handily by the Jardins Tuilleries so when I'm loaded down with books from Galignani's and W.H. Smith, I can grab an ice cream or churro and pull up a bench and read. Or head into Angelina's for a hot chocolate and eclair.  Which is my idea of a paradise  that never disappears.