Nadal Eying his 10th French Open Roland Garros Title Sunday 11 June 2017

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The French Open title now coming to an end with ladies single final finally ending in J. Ostapenko favour who beat S Halep today in an easy win over final. But the men's final on Sunday today will be a great final for it is French Open master and nine time winner Rafael Nadal is appearing to take his 10th record title when he meets Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland today.

Rafel Nadal who has shown his resilience despite his injuries to reach the final beating  sixth ranked D. Thiem in straight sets 6-6, 6-4 and 6-0 may carry the day against his opponent  Wawrinka whom he had a favourable record of winning 15-3. His latest win over Wawrinka was at ATP World Tour Masters 1000 Monte Carlo in 2016.

In in interview, Nadal says, "It's true that 10 is a beautiful number, but actually my favourite is nine. But sure if it becomes 10 it will be my favourite." So let us see who carries the day today. I pin my hopes on Nadal.

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Spectacular Eiffel Tower by night

In my previous post on the Paris night boat ride, we had embarked upon our boat ride while the Eiffel Tower's lights were just being started to put on. But when we reached back, I could see the Eiffel Tower in its full bloom of lights as can be seen in the following shot that I took from the boat.

And then when we disembarked, it was all fun to watch the lights glittering through the entire height of the tower with flocks of tourists standing and enjoying their last glimpse of the day of this mighty tower. For me it was the last glimpse as we had other plans for the remaining days left in Paris.

Scroll down for more photos and two video clips of the illuminated Eiffel Tower:

Screen shot from the video I made of the illuminations on the Eiffel

And then it was time to go and we had to bid farewell to Eiffel Tower for good - but may not be forever as anyone who comes to Paris once, falls in love with it and always come back. And the following photos was the last of the Eiffel Tower which I shot.

Interestingly, it was almost the same place where I had my maiden shot of the Eiffel Tower early in the morning as can be seen below:

I also made two videos of the illumination of the Eiffel Tower. The following clip was made from the boat when nearing the Eiffel Tower:

So, it is goodbye Eiffel Tower for now - who knows when we meet again!!

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Eiffel Tower by Night

Although I have finished covering the first phase of my Schengen countries travelogue in my last post - I purposely left out the scenic beauty of the Eiffel Tower at night. While this massive steel structure looks awesome and majestic during the day, it looks spectacularly dreamy and beautiful at night - something that one cannot describe in words. You have to be there to appreciate its beauty at night.

Spotting it for the first time during the day was just like a dream come true. In the morning haze it wasn't as bright as it turned out to be as the day progressed and we had a lot of photos taken from far, from below, from the two levels and finally from its top, watching Paris down below. And I have covered all these many separate posts already.

But we had to come back in the evening to take the last boat ride on the river Seine when the lights of the Eiffel Tower were just about to be switched on and the glow became stronger as we moved away and the evening got darker.

On our way back, I caught a glimpse of the Eiffel, now sufficiently lit while passing under the Pont Alexandre III bridge (photo above and below).

 Finally, the Eiffel Tower comes in full view in its full bloom of illuminations

 My children and wife with Eiffel Tower in the background (above-below)

Spectacular view of Eiffel Tower from the boat, just before disembarking

 I too am finally photographed sitting with my wife

With my family posing at the exit of the boat with Eiffel Tower in the background

But seeing it from the point I saw it for the first time in the morning was something mesmerizing. And by the time we reached the spot, it was already jam packed with tourists taking their last photos of the day with glittering Eiffel in the background.

Now if you view my second photo in the beginning, and then compare it with the photo below, you would know where we're standing for taking rest of the photos and making videos.

The Eiffel Tower stood there with a pitch-dark background and glittering like gold. It was difficult for me to memorize and capture the moment in my memory for ever as I was also taking photographs and making videos.

While watching the lights and getting mesmerized, suddenly the lights started to flash and suddenly the entire tower danced with the moving and flashing light as can be seen in the photo above. But one may not enjoy the still photo to understand what I really saw. But my video down below would simply tell, which I have shared on YouTube:

This is my last post on Paris - maybe someday I will visit this city of lovers again and I will come back to add more what I could not see during the four days that we had in Paris. Have you visited Paris? What makes you remember the city the most? Do share your view. 

Watch my previous posts on Eiffel Tower:

Maiden Glimpse of Eiffel Tower

Evening in Paris

Paris Boat Ride

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Goodbye Paris

It was a wonderful four days stay in Paris last September 2014 when we had driven into Paris after spending a memorable school friends reunion in Groningen, Holland. 

Paris has been a dream country and sure enough this is the reason why this single city attracts majority of tourists and travelers from around the world. We were lucky to see the major landmarks of Paris but due to shortage of time we still missed many.

Leaving Paris was not that easy and reminded me of Bonnie Tyler's song 'I was lost in France' time and again. 

Passing by Austerlitz Viaduct

Austerlitz Viaduct is a single-deck, steel arch rail bridge crosses the Seine. It is used for the railroad traffic on Line 5 of the Parisian Metro Network. It links Gare d'Austerlitz on the left bank to Quai de la Rapée on the other side of the river.

Before we leaving Paris, we still had two destinations to visit: The Notre Dam cathedral and the Carrefour shopping centre. I have already written a separate post on visit to the Cathedrale Notre Dame. 

Carreefour is a big multinational retailer chain, with its stores are spread around the world. In Pakistan it operates under the brand name of Hyper Star. We just had enough time to find a parking and visit the store and I was lucky to buy to pair of joggers - one of which though did not last my second Schengen trip and its sole gave away and thus my 24 Euros too!!

It was getting late and we had to cross Belgium and enter Germany through Holland to a German border town of Viersen where a lovely Pak-German family awaited us for our night stop over.

Belgium is perhaps the only country Schengen country which has street lights throughout its length of motorways. Unlike other countries, therefore, we had a well lit night drive through Belgium on deserted roads as it was late at night.

By the time we reached Viersen, Germany, it was almost one in the morning and the entire town of Viersen was asleep. Thanks to the excellent navigation of the BMW we were driving that we did not have to ask directions - even if we wanted to, there was no one around. So we reached dot in front of the house of Mr Qamar Baig, friend of a friend of mine, who was awake waiting for us. Since we were utterly late, Mr Qamar's German wife who had come from the work late in evening was asleep and we met her on the breakfast table in the morning.

A sleeping Viersen

Now we were back into Germany - but we still had a lot of travelling to do to reach Kiel from where we started our Schengen tour almost ten days ago. I will talk about our stay in Viersen, then a quick run through Düsseldorf.

Stay tuned for my remaining part of Schengen tour!!

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