My family visited the Eiffel Tower late in our Paris vacation. All week, we had eyed it from afar, then decided while wandering along the right bank one night to see it up close. "You'll want to see the dancing lights," a friend had told us.

We wound our way through street vendors selling a variety of tiny souvenir towers. A glance at the line to ride to the observation deck convinced us that the view from the ground was just fine. So we turned toward the park facing the tower and waded into a crowd of picnicking locals and tourists.

It was a crowd, and everyone who was part of it had some distraction to draw attention from the Tower. People drank and talked and I even saw a few dancing or making out on the dim lawn.

Then the light show began and everyone turned eyes to it. Lights flickered across the Tower in random patterns. This went on for a few minutes then abruptly stopped. A few watchers cheered.

We waited a moment to see if there was anything else, then departed south out of the park, into a quiet, nearly empty street. And no, we didn't buy a souvenir Eiffel Tower to mark the occasion.

Have an Eiffel Tower story to share? Add it to the comments.