Besides climbing the tower, if you decide to do so (it's a MUST DO for all the tourists that visit Paris for the first time and so you must be ready to wait in line for a long time to climb it), I highly recommend that you walk around this area - Champ de Mars, the park & green areas surrounding the tower and the fountains at the Trocadero are wonderful to take a walk or just sit down for a while and relax - and eat one of the snacks that are sold in the stands you'll find all over the place (warm waffles - called gauffres -, or crepes)... they're GREAT!!!
Since a couple of years ago - or so I heard, in 2007 - they started illuminating the Eiffel Tower with these lights that look like white "sparks" besides of the regular yellowish light that illuminates the monument permanently in the evenings. The sparks aren't permanent, they only display them for 5 mins. or so every hour, starting at 8:00 PM if I'm not wrong and up till midnight. It's an awesome view which I was able to appreciate both while being very close to the Tower and also from afar, while at the top of the Montparnasse Tower. The picture is terrible unfortunately, and it could never replace the REAL view.... but look at it just to get an idea of what it looks like!


