Eiffel Tower and Big Pineapple are the next best thing

Australia is well known for Big Things, effigies of fruit, vegetables, seafood and pastoral animals.

Australia is well known for Big Things, those effigies of fruit, vegetables, seafood and pastoral animals that define our primary industries and attract tourists by the wagonload. Some of these, such as the Big Banana at Coffs Harbour, are enormously profitable businesses and fun places to break a road trip or discover the delights of, say, alarmingly yellow banana pops on sticks and themed stubby holders. At the Big Merino in Goulburn, you could buy a souvenir glitter dome or a woolly hand puppet, both guaranteed to pass the time on that last stretch to Canberra.

But what about those completely dislocated Big Things marooned continents apart. I give you the Eiffel Tower in Paris. To be specific, Paris, Texas. Which is northeast of Dallas, where my older son, his wife and their infant daughter are temporarily residing. The replica, built in 1993, is about one-tenth the size of the original and, this being Texas, has a bright red cowboy hat on top of its spire and, who knows, possibly concealed weapons about its framework. The hat was added so the tower would win the “height fight” with the one in Paris, Tennessee, which also sprung up in 1993. It’s quite a “thing” in the US to have replicas of famous buildings, as a visit to Las Vegas instantly reveals.

Mia in Paris, Texas.

There are pretend Eiffel Towers in China, Mexico, Pakistan and Greece. There’s even a Big Pineapple in South Africa billed as the world’s largest. How dare they! In Hawaii, there was a Big Pineapple on a water tower near Waikiki that glowed like a beacon in the sun but it corroded away and was dismantled about 30 years ago. How could they!

My granddaughter Mia Susan (pictured) toddled around the Texan tower recently, oblivious to its fakery. What she doesn’t know is I plan to take her to Paris, France, when we can all travel again, and buy her fashionable frocks and bijou slippers and rose-petal macarons. We’ll go by elevator to the top of Le Tour Eiffel. It will be a very big day out.
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