La Tour Eiffel
It’s crowded, expensive, and there are probably better views in Paris, but visiting this 1,000-foot-tall ornament is unforgettable—and well worth the trouble. Visitors to Paris may find Mona Lisa to be less than expected, but the Eiffel Tower rarely disappoints, even in an era of skyscrapers. This is a once-in-a-lifetime, I’ve-been-there experience. Making the eye-popping ascent and ear-popping descent gives you membership in the exclusive society of the quarter of a billion other humans who have made the Eiffel Tower the most visited monument in the modern world.
(See “Eiffel Tower” map, here.)
Cost: €25 to ride two elevators all the way to the top third level, €16 to ride to the first or second level, €10 to climb the stairs to the first or second level, €19 to take the stairs and then elevator to the summit—must purchase summit elevator before entering tower, 50 percent cheaper for those under 25, 75 percent cheaper for those under 12, not covered by Museum Pass.
Hours: Daily mid-June-Aug 9:00-24:45, Sept-mid-June 9:30-23:45, last ascent to top at 22:30 and to lower levels at 23:00 all year (elevator and stairs). The top level can close temporarily in windy weather or when it reaches capacity.
Information: Recorded info toll tel. 08 92 70 12 39, www.toureiffel.paris.
Buying Tickets in Advance: It’s fast and easy—and strongly advised—to book a reservation online. At www.toureiffel.paris, you can book an entry time and skip the initial entry line (the longest) at no extra cost.
Online ticket sales open up about three months before any given date (at 8:30 Paris time)—and can sell out within hours (especially for April-Sept). Be sure of your date, as reservations are nonrefundable. If no slots are available, try buying a “Lift entrance ticket with access to 2nd floor”—the view from the second floor is arguably better anyway. Or, try the website again about a week before your visit—last-minute spots sometimes open up. To go all the way to the top, select “Lift entrance ticket with access to the summit” as your ticket type.
You can either print your tickets (follow the specifications carefully) or download e-tickets to your phone. Note that email or text confirmations alone will not get you in; you must have a printed or electronic ticket showing the bar code.
Buying Tickets On-Site: You can occasionally just drop by, buy a ticket, and go directly up the tower. But you’re much more likely to find yourself in horrible, long ticket-buying lines. Crowds overwhelm this place much of the year, with one- to two-hour waits (unless it’s rainy, when lines evaporate). Weekends and holidays are worst.
If you don’t have a reservation, get in line to buy tickets 30 minutes before the tower opens. Going much later in the day is the next-best bet (after 19:00 May-Aug, after 17:00 off-season, after 16:00 in winter as it gets dark by 17:00). Once in line, estimate about 20 minutes for every 100 yards.
When you buy tickets on-site, all members of your party must be with you. To get reduced fares for kids, bring ID.
Other Tips for Avoiding Lines: You can bypass some (but not all) lines with a reservation at either of the tower’s view restaurants. Or you can buy a “Skip the Line” tour (almost right up to the last minute) through Fat Tire Tours (see here).
When to Go: For the best of all worlds, arrive with enough light to see the views, then stay as it gets dark to see the lights. The views are grand whether you ascend or not. At the top of the hour, a five-minute display features thousands of sparkling lights (best viewed from Place du Trocadéro or the grassy park below).
Getting There: The tower is about a 10-minute walk from the Métro (Bir-Hakeim or Trocadéro stops) or suburban train (RER/Train-C Champ de Mars-Tour Eiffel stop). The Ecole Militaire Métro stop in the Rue Cler area is 20 minutes away. Buses #42, #69, and #87 stop nearby on Avenue Joseph Bouvard in the Champ de Mars park.
Getting In: The perimeter of the tower is surrounded by glass walls for security purposes. So, while it’s free to enter the area directly under the tower, you must first pass through an airport-like security check (allow 30 minutes or more at busy times).
Past security you enter the vast area under the tower (where the view straight up the underbelly of the tower is very cool). This is where you’ll line up to enter (or buy tickets if you haven’t already). Ticket booths and entrances are at the tower’s four pillars (though not all may be open for your visit—the south pillar is for stairs, one is devoted to service needs, and one is for public elevators).
If you have a reservation, arrive at the tower 30 minutes before your entry time and look for either of the two entrances with green signs showing Visiteurs avec Reservation (Visitors with Reservation), where attendants scan your ticket and put you on the first available elevator.
Without a reservation, follow signs for Individuels or Visiteurs sans Tickets (avoid lines selling tickets only for Groupes). If two entrances are marked Visiteurs sans Tickets, pick the shortest line. The stairs entrance (usually a shorter line) is at the south pillar (next to Le Jules Verne restaurant entrance).
Length of This Tour: If you have reservations and crowds are light, the quickest you could get to the top and back (with minimal sightseeing) would be 90 minutes. Otherwise, budget three to four hours to wait in line, get to the top, and sightsee your way back down. With limited time or money, skip “the summit” (the views from the second level are actually better).
Pickpockets: Beware. Street thieves plunder awestruck visitors gawking below the tower. And tourists in crowded elevators are like fish in a barrel for predatory pickpockets. En garde. A police station is at the Jules Verne pillar.
Security Check: Bags larger than 19" × 8" × 12" are not allowed, but there is no baggage check. All bags are subject to a security search. No knives, glass bottles, or cans are permitted.
Services: The Eiffel Tower information office is at the west pillar. Free WCs are at the base of the tower, behind the east pillar. Inside the tower itself, WCs are on all levels, but they’re small, with long lines.
Best Views of the Tower: The best place to view the tower is from Place du Trocadéro to the north. It’s a 10-minute walk across the river, a happening scene at night, and especially fun for kids. Consider arriving at the Trocadéro Métro stop for the view, then walking toward the tower. Another delightful viewpoint is from the Champ de Mars park to the south. The pedestrian bridge a few blocks upriver near the Quai Branly Museum also offers terrific tower views.
Starring: All of Paris...and beyond.
There are three observation platforms, at roughly 200, 400, and 900 feet. Although being on the windy top of the Eiffel Tower is a thrill you’ll never forget, the view is better from the second level, where you can actually see Paris’ monuments. The first level also has nice views and more tourist-oriented sights. All three levels have some displays, WCs, souvenir stores, and a few other services.
For the hardy, stairs lead from the ground level up to the first and second levels—and rarely have a long line. It’s 360 stairs to the first level and another 360 to the second. The staircase is enclosed with a wire cage, so you can’t fall, but those with vertigo issues may still find them dizzying.
If you want to see the entire tower, from top to bottom, then see it...from top to bottom. There isn’t a single elevator straight to the top (le sommet). To get there, you’ll first ride an elevator (or hike up the stairs) to the second level. (Some elevators stop on the first level, but don’t get off—it’s more efficient to see the first level on the way down). Once on the second level, immediately line up for the next elevator, to the top. (Look for the shortest line; there are several elevators and feeder queues.) Enjoy the views from the “summit,” then ride back down to the second level. Frolic there for a while, and when you’re ready, head to the first level via the stairs (no line and can take as little as five minutes) or take the elevator down. Explore the shops and exhibits on the first level. To leave, you can line up for the elevator, but it’s quickest and most memorable to take the stairs back down to earth.
As you ascend through the metal beams, imagine being a worker, perched high above nothing, riveting this thing together. It was a massive project, and it took all the ingenuity of the Industrial Age—including mass production, cutting-edge technology, and capitalist funding.
The foundation was the biggest obstacle. The soil, especially along the river, was too muddy to support big pillars. Gustave Eiffel drew on his bridge-building experience, where support piers needed to be constructed underwater. He sank heavy, bottomless compartments (caissons) into the wet soil. These were watertight and injected with breathable air, so workers could dig out the mud beneath them, allowing the caisson to sink farther. When the workers were done, the hole was filled in with cement 20 feet thick and capped with stone. The massive iron pillars were sunk into the ground at an angle, anchored in the subterranean stone.
The tower went up like an 18,000-piece erector set, made of 15-foot iron beams held together with 2.5 million rivets. The pieces were mass-produced in factories in the suburbs and brought in on wagons. For two years, 300 workers assembled the pieces, the tower rising as they went. First, they used wooden scaffolding to support the lower (angled) sections, until the pillars came together and the tower could support itself. Then the iron beams were lifted up with steam-powered cranes, including some on tracks (creeper cranes) that inched up the pillars as the tower progressed. There, daring workers dangled from rope ladders, balanced on beams, and tightrope-walked their way across them as they put the pieces in place. The workers then hammered in red-hot rivets made on-site by blacksmiths. As the rivets cooled, they solidified the structure.
After a mere year and a half, the tower surpassed what had been the tallest structure in the world—the Washington Monument (555 feet), which had taken 36 years to build.
The tower was painted a rusty red. Since then, it’s sported several colors, including mustard and the current brown-gray. It is repainted every seven years (it takes 25 full-time painters 18 months to apply 60 tons of paint by hand—no spraying allowed).
Two years, two months, and five days after construction began, the tower was done. On May 15, 1889, a red, white, and blue beacon was lit on the top, the World’s Fair began, and the tower carried its first astounded visitor to the top.
(See “Eiffel Tower” map, here.)
Gaze up at the tower towering above you, and don’t even think about what would happen if someone dropped a coin from the top.
Delicate and graceful when seen from afar, the Eiffel Tower is massive—even a bit scary—close up. You don’t appreciate its size until you walk toward it; like a mountain, it seems so close but takes forever to reach.
The tower, including its antenna, stands 1,063 feet tall, or slightly higher than the 77-story Chrysler Building in New York. Its four support pillars straddle an area of 3.5 acres. Despite the tower’s 7,300 tons of metal and 60 tons of paint, it is so well-engineered that it weighs no more per square inch at its base than a linebacker on tiptoes.
Once the world’s tallest structure, it’s now eclipsed by a number of towers (Tokyo Skytree, 2,080 feet, for one), radio antennae (KVLY-TV mast, North Dakota, 2,063 feet), and skyscrapers (Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE, 2,717 feet). France’s sleek Le Viaduc de Millau, a 1.5-mile-long suspension bridge completed in late 2004, also has a taller tower (1,125 feet). The consortium that built the bridge included the same company that erected the Eiffel Tower.
The long green lawn stretching south of the tower is the Champ de Mars, originally the training ground for troops and students of the nearby military school (Ecole Militaire) and now a park. On the north side, across the Seine, is the curved palace colonnade framing a square called the Trocadéro.
The first visitor to the Paris World’s Fair in 1889 walked beneath the “arch” formed by the newly built Eiffel Tower and entered the fairgrounds. This event celebrated both the centennial of the French Revolution and France’s position as a global superpower. Bridge builder Gustave Eiffel (1832-1923) won the contest to build the fair’s centerpiece by beating out rival proposals such as a giant guillotine.
Eiffel deserved to have the tower named for him. He did much more than design it. He oversaw its entire construction, personally financed it, and was legally on the hook if the project floundered. His factory produced the iron beams, and his workers built it, using cranes and apparatus designed by Eiffel. Facing a deadline for the exposition, he brought in the project on time and under budget.
The tower was nothing but a showpiece, with no functional purpose except to demonstrate to the world that France had the wealth, knowledge, and can-do spirit to erect a structure far taller than anything the world had ever seen. The original plan was to dismantle the tower as quickly as it was built after the celebration ended, but it was kept by popular demand.
To a generation hooked on technology, the tower was the marvel of the age, a symbol of progress and human ingenuity. Not all were so impressed, however; many found it a monstrosity. The writer Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893) routinely ate lunch in the tower just so he wouldn’t have to look at it.
In subsequent years, the tower has come to serve many functions: as a radio transmitter (1909-present), a cosmic-ray observatory (1910), a billboard (spelling “Citroën” in lights, 1925-1934), a broadcaster of Nazi TV programs (1940-1944), a fireworks launch pad (numerous times), and as a framework for dazzling lighting displays, including the current arrangement, designed in 2000 for the celebration of the millennium.
• To reach the top, ride the elevator or walk (720 stairs) to the second level. From there, get in line for the next elevator and continue to the top. Pop out 900 feet above the ground. (Note: You’ll likely hear noisy alarms jolting the atmosphere. These go off when too many crowd into the elevator.)
You’ll find wind and grand, sweeping views on the tiny top level. The city lies before you (pick out sights with the help of the panoramic maps). On a good day, you can see for 40 miles. Do a 360-degree tour of Paris.
Looking west (ouest): The Seine runs east to west (though at this point it’s flowing more southwest). At the far end of the skinny “island” in the river, find the tiny copy of the Statue of Liberty, looking 3,633 miles away to her big sister in New York. Gustave Eiffel, a man of many talents, also designed the internal supports of New York’s Statue of Liberty, which was cast in copper by fellow Frenchman Frederic Bartholdi (1886).
Looking north (nord): At your feet is the curved arcade of the Trocadéro, itself the site of a World’s Fair in 1878. Beyond that is the vast, forested expanse of the Bois de Boulogne, the three-square-mile park that hosts joggers and boules players by day and prostitutes by night. The track with bleachers (on the left end of the park) is Paris’ horseracing track, the Hippodrome de Longchamp. In the far distance are the skyscrapers of La Défense. Find the Arc de Triomphe to the right of the Trocadéro. The lone skyscraper between the Arc and the Trocadéro is the Palais des Congrès, a complex that hosts international conferences, trade shows, and major concerts.
Looking east (est): At your feet are the Seine and its many bridges, including the Pont Alexandre, with its four golden statues. Looking farther upstream, find the Orsay Museum, the Louvre, Pont Neuf, and the twin towers of Notre-Dame. On the Right Bank (which is to your left), find the Grand Palais (with its huge iron-and-glass roof), next to the Pont Alexandre. Beyond the Grand Palais is the bullet-shaped dome of Sacré-Cœur, atop Butte Montmartre.
Looking south (sud): In a line, find the Champ de Mars, the Ecole Militaire, the Y-shaped UNESCO building, and the 689-foot Montparnasse Tower skyscraper. To the left is the golden dome of Les Invalides marking Napoleon’s tomb, and beyond that, just past the green Luxembourg Garden, is the state-capitol-shaped dome of the Panthéon.
The tippy top: Ascend another short staircase to the open-air top. Look up at all the satellite dishes and communications equipment (and around to find the tiny WC). You’ll see the small apartment given to Gustave Eiffel, who’s now represented by a mannequin (he’s the one with the beard).
The mannequins re-create the moment during the 1889 World’s Fair when the American Thomas Edison paid a visit to his fellow techie, Gustave (and Gustave’s daughter Claire), presenting them with his new invention, a phonograph. (Then they cranked it up and blasted The Who’s “I Can See for Miles.”) Feeling proud you made it this high? You can celebrate your accomplishment with a glass of champagne from the bar.
• Ride the elevator down to the...
The second level (400 feet) has the best views because you’re closer to the sights, and the monuments are more recognizable. (For a review of this view, refer to the descriptions given above) The second level has souvenir shops, WCs, and a small stand-up café.
The world-class Le Jules Verne restaurant is on this level, but you won’t see it; access is by a private elevator. The head chef is currently Alain Ducasse, who operates restaurants around the world. One would hope his brand of haute cuisine matches the 400-foot haute of the restaurant.
• Catch the elevator. (There are two different departure lines, so choose the one with the shorter wait.) Or take 360 steps down to the...
The first level (200 feet) has more great views, all well-described by the tower’s panoramic displays. There’s really not much here: a private exhibition hall, a restaurant, and a public hall with a café, shop, and little theater. Pop-up restaurants and kiosks appear with every season—even a little playground for kids. In winter, part of the first level is often set up to host an ice-skating rink.
The tower—which was designed from the start to accommodate hordes of visitors—has always had elevators. Today’s elevators are modern replacements. Back in the late 19th century, elevator technology was so new that this was the one job that Gustave Eiffel subcontracted to other experts (including an American company). They needed a special design to accommodate the angle of the tower’s pillars. Today’s elevators make about 100 round-trip journeys a day.
There are 1,665 stairs to the top level, though tourists can only climb 720 of them, up as far as the second level. During a race in 1905, a gentleman climbed from the ground to the second level—elevation gain nearly 400 feet—in 3 minutes, 12 seconds.
The highlight is the breathtaking, vertigo-inducing, selfie-inspiring glass floor. Venture onto it and experience what it’s like to stand atop an 18-story building and look straight down. Then look up at the massive structure around you. Check out your fellow visitors—the crowds may make the place a total zoo, but everyone’s still thrilled.
The 58 Tour Eiffel restaurant is on this level (also run by chef Alain Ducasse, with more accessible prices than its upstairs sibling). The Salon Gustave Eiffel is a private reception hall not open to the public.
Explore the various exhibits (which change often). A continuously running film (in the glass-walled Ferrié Pavilion) shows a montage of the tower’s construction, paint job, place in pop culture, and guts and glory. As you wander the first floor, you may find exhibits on the tower’s past, jobs there, other creations by Monsieur Eiffel, or the tower’s famous visitors—from Adolph Hitler to Katy Perry. You might learn how the sun warms the tower’s metal, causing the top to expand and lean about five inches away from the sun, or how the tower oscillates slightly in the wind. Because of its lacy design, even the strongest of winds can’t blow the tower down, but only cause it to sway a few inches. In fact, Eiffel designed the tower primarily with wind resistance in mind, wanting a structure seemingly “molded by the action of the wind itself.”
• To return to the bottom, take either the elevator or the stairs (five minutes, 360 steps). The stairs are generally much quicker.
Welcome back to earth. After you’ve climbed the tower, you come to appreciate it even more from a distance. For a final look, stroll across the river to Place du Trocadéro or to the end of the Champ de Mars and look back for great views. However impressive it may be by day, the tower is an awesome thing to behold at twilight, when it becomes engorged with light, and virile Paris lies back and lets night be on top. When darkness fully envelops the city, the tower seems to climax with a spectacular light show at the top of each hour...for five glorious minutes.
• Nearby, you can catch a boat for a Seine cruise (see here) or hop on bus #69 for a tour of the city (
see the Bus #69 Sightseeing Tour). The Trocadero viewpoint, which looks “right there,” is a 20-minute walk away. The entertaining riverbank promenade starts on the south side of the river near here and stretches to the Orsay Museum. Also nearby are the Quai Branly Museum, Rue Cler area ( see my Rue Cler Walk), Army Museum and Napoleon’s Tomb ( see my Army Museum & Napoleon’s Tomb Tour), and Rodin Museum (next chapter).