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Eiffel Tower, Paris, France | |
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The symbol of Paris is easy
to see but can be time-consuming to visit. Here are strategies for going up the La Tour Eiffel so it won't take a whole day.
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You were never meant to see Paris's Eiffel Tower! The soaring symbol of Paris was built as a "temporary structure" to add flair to Paris' Exposition Universelle (World's Fair) of 1889 set up on the vast Champ-de-Mars. The famous tower named for Eiffel was actually designed by a member of his staff! For various reasons it remained standing, damned by some and praised by others, until the point when Paris sans Tour Eiffel became unthinkable. Our suggestion is to take the Métro to Trocadéro, and come down from the Palais de Chaillot and Jardins du Trocadéro to the Seine in order to get the full effect of the tower and its surroundings. Besides the fabulous views of the tower, the Champ-de-Mars park, the École Militaire, and the Jardins du Trocadéro, you get a free show as the open spaces in front of the Palais de Chaillot are filled with amateur trick bicyclists, roller skaters, skateboarders, dancers, and acrobats. More...
How to Buy TicketsThe best way is to buy your tickets online at least one day in advance. The line for those with tickets is always much shorter than the line to buy tickets at the tower. More... The Eiffel Tower has elevators/lifts in two of its pillars. Go as high as you like, or can afford, but the best view is, of course, from the top, where the tower's historians have re-created the office of engineer Gustave Eiffel. When you have your ticket, if you don't want to wait in line to use the elevator/lift, you can climb stairs to the second level, which offers fine views, but to ascend to the top you must wait for an elevator—no stairs to the top. Besides the fabulous view (go in late afternoon on a clear day), the Eiffel Tower has an orientation film (first level), and several restaurants and bars. In 2014, construction was completed on a new First Floor with a glass floor and glass pavilions that enhance views of both the city and the tower's complicated structure. This is the fourth time the First Floor has been rebuilt (earlier work was done in 1900, 1937 and 1981.) M. Eiffel, by the way, built mostly bridges, though a notable exception to those utilitarian structures was his skeletal structure to support the Statue of Liberty in New York City. The statue, a work of sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi of Colmar, was a gift from the people of France to the people of the USA. Eiffel Tower (Tour
Eiffel) Métro: Trocadéro or Bir Hakeim RER: Champ de Mars-Tour Eiffel
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Above, top observatory of
the Eiffel Tower.
Artist's conception of the glass floor and pavilions on the redesigned First Floor
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