If you ask me what feelings the Eiffel Tower evokes for me, I’d have to say that, indeed, it’s a matter of sentiments. Those one feels for an old friend one is always glad to see again. A friend who was responsible for my first publication in Life in 1953. In the course of a long voyage full of more wear and rather less reason, laying eyes on this great lady again, you’re sure that, at last, you are home again.

She is always there, quite erect, a bit arrogant as she looks down on us from so far above. More than ever, she is courted by an increasing number of lovers who climb up to conquer her.

Her image marked our childhood. And coming home from the country on a Sunday evening, every one of my children played the same game at the same age of around three or four, of seeing who would be the first to see the familiar tower in the Paris sky.

 

Marc Riboud