There are at least two things you can’t forget to do when you visit Paris. The first is to spend at least half a day at the Louvre Museum and the second is to go up the Eiffel Tower. Yes, because if you’re planning a trip to France or already strolling along the beautiful avenues of Paris, you’ve surely already felt the urge to climb to the top of the most famous tower in the world, haven’t you?
I thought so!
The Eiffel Tower is a late-nineteenth-century monument that is not only the symbol of the French capital and of France as a whole, but also the most famous monument in the world, the most visited and even the most reproduced.
But how can a monument that is little more than 135 years old be so famous?
The French have certainly been very good at promoting it. Over the years you’ve surely seen the Eiffel Tower in countless films and events all over the world, and even in some animated masterpieces.
And ever since the little lights were installed it has become even more beautiful, hasn’t it?
Living in Paris, I’ve had the chance to visit it dozens and dozens of times. Everyone who comes to see me absolutely wants to go, and we’ve even celebrated a birthday right at the top.
But the history of the Eiffel Tower is very peculiar and, if you have the patience and the curiosity to read on, I’ll tell you about it shortly. If instead you’re just looking for information about Eiffel Tower tickets and how to go up without queuing, you’ll find everything in the dedicated section further down.
In the beautiful park of the Champ de Mars, I promise you’ll feel truly tiny in front of this masterpiece of engineering. The tower of Paris was for years the tallest monument in the world and still today it never stops amazing.
Do you want to know why?
Good!
In this post I’ll tell you all the numbers, the anecdotes, the history of the Eiffel Tower and all the twists and turns that made it the symbol of Paris and of France as a whole.
Let’s go!
1 – How to go up the Eiffel Tower
Before I tell you some of the most interesting anecdotes, I’m sure you’ll want to know how to go up the Eiffel Tower.
Maybe you don’t know yet, but you have two options: tackle a “climb” of around 1,600 steps on foot, or take a series of lifts that will carry you calmly all the way to the very top.
The lifts on the Eiffel Tower take you to the various levels, and the entrance ticket has a different price depending on the floor you want to reach. If instead you’re brave enough to venture up on foot, you should know that you can’t reach the top by the stairs: for some years now, access to the top floor of the Eiffel Tower has only been possible by lift, for safety reasons.
But how long does it take to visit it?
To go up the Eiffel Tower you should count on at least 3 hours, mainly because of the long queues you’ll face, both at the main ticket office and at the entrance to the lifts. I know, it sounds like an eternity, but luckily there’s a way to be quicker.
For some years now it has in fact been possible to buy the priority-access ticket directly online, so that you at least skip the queue at the ticket office.
A big advantage, right?
But there’s more!
If you want to plan a romantic surprise or you have a passion for night landscapes, you should know that it’s possible to go up the Eiffel Tower at night too.
In summer the tower is open from 9 am until 00:45 (with last entry just before midnight), while for the rest of the year the hours run from 9:30 am to 11:45 pm for lift access, and until 6:30 pm for the stairs.
Now that I’ve given you all the practical information… would you like to know all the curiosities about this important monument of Paris?
2 – Numbers and curiosities about the Eiffel Tower
This piece of news usually makes us Italians turn up our noses, proud as we are of our magnificent monuments, but the Eiffel Tower is the most visited paid monument in the world. Just think that every year this towering iron lady welcomes about seven million tourists.
The credit surely goes to the magnificent panorama over Paris, which makes it one of the most romantic places in the world.
But that’s not all!
Its astonishing structure, entirely made of metal, has made it an absolute icon of modern engineering, so much so that in 2007 it was among the finalist candidates for the “new seven wonders of the world” (although in the end it did not make it into the winning seven).
And the curiosities are certainly not over here!
Do you fancy a few numbers?
Well, the height of the Eiffel Tower is today 330 metres, ever since a new antenna was added in March 2022 (before it was 324 metres). And I say “today” because the height isn’t even fixed throughout the year: the metal it’s made of expands and contracts with temperature, enough to cause a variation of as much as 15 cm!
In the year it was built, the tower became the tallest structure in the world and remained so until the construction of the Chrysler Building in New York, in 1930. Think that precisely because of its height, still today, it is used as a base for radio and television antennas.
The weight of the Eiffel Tower, on the other hand, is around 10,000 tonnes (of which about 7,300 of iron alone), not bad if we consider that it’s made up of more than 18,000 metal parts held together by millions of rivets. It was built in a little over two years and it’s astonishing not only for the speed with which it was raised, but above all because, during its construction, only one worker lost his life. A truly extraordinary result, if we think of the safety measures of the time.
And the lights?
If you’re wondering how many flashing little lights there are on the Eiffel Tower… well, there are more than 20,000 small bulbs that make it sparkle every night with a truly striking effect. These lights were installed for the passage to the new millennium, on 1 January 2000, and were meant to be removed the following year. Luckily the Parisians liked them so much that they were never taken down.
Finally, something almost no one ever thinks about!
But doesn’t all that metal rust?
Of course it does!
In fact the Eiffel Tower undergoes constant maintenance and is periodically repainted from top to bottom. Over the years it hasn’t always had the same colour, and it is often given a slight gradient to make it look even taller.
Think that it takes 50 to 60 tonnes of paint to cover it all.
3 – Construction and history of the Eiffel Tower
The Eiffel Tower in Paris was designed for the 1889 Universal Exhibition, which celebrated the centenary of the French Revolution.
From the very start it became the object of great criticism, because it was considered unaesthetic and because it did not harmonise at all with the skyline of Paris at the time. The original idea was to build a temporary work: the Eiffel Tower was in fact meant to be dismantled at the end of the exhibition.
But then why is it still there?
At first the salvation of the Eiffel Tower came thanks to the recent experiments in the field of telecommunications. The tower was not demolished because antennas were installed on its top that allowed radio communications over great distances.
And then?
During the Second World War its lifts were sabotaged to prevent the Nazis from reaching the top and seizing the radio equipment. The French did the same during Hitler’s visit too, so that he was forced to stay at the foot of the tower.
Well, by then it had already become a symbol.
However, unlike almost all the monuments of Paris, the Eiffel Tower has not always stayed the same over time. The French have in fact modified it according to the needs of the historical period and, perhaps, a little for fashion too.
Now I’ll tell you about it.
4 – How the Eiffel Tower has changed over time
Although it was harshly criticised, this iron tower remains a symbol of modernity and is still incredibly current.
Over the years it has been modified several times: some of the original decorative elements were simplified because they no longer reflected the taste of the time, and the colour was changed several times. Yet this monument has never lost its charm and its ability to attract people.
Beyond the studies on radio waves, over the years the Eiffel Tower also became sadly known for a few suicides and accidents. The most talked-about was surely that of the tailor Franz Reichelt. In 1912 he threw himself from the first floor of the tower (at a height of about 57 metres) to test a prototype parachute he had made himself. Sadly, however innovative it was, his invention did not stop him from crashing to the ground moments later.
The marketing that surrounds the tower of Paris is remarkable, also thanks to its shape, extremely easy to reproduce and to stylise, which gives it another record: that of being the most reproduced monument in the world.
Personally I find it rather pointless to compare the Eiffel Tower and the Colosseum, as I’ve heard people do many times: they are two completely different works, and nearly 2,000 years separate them. They are two masterpieces of engineering, from very different eras and contexts.
The Eiffel Tower is a masterpiece of “modern” art, an iron lady watching over Paris and keeping millions of tourists looking up for more than a century.
After all, you only really realise you’re in Paris when you find yourself at its feet.
5 – How to book the Eiffel Tower and how to get there
First of all, to get to the Eiffel Tower you can take the metro. All of Paris is easy to get around thanks to public transport, and the nearest stop to the Eiffel Tower is Bir-Hakeim, on line 6. Alternatively you can take line 9 to Trocadéro or line 8 to École Militaire.
Which is the best option?
I recommend getting off at Trocadéro to enjoy the view of the tower from the top of the square, and then walking down to its feet. Bear in mind it will take at least 15 minutes on foot, but it’s really worth it.
There’s one thing to keep in mind, though: after the 2015 attacks you can no longer walk freely under the Eiffel Tower, but you first have to go through security checks. This means a small queue at the checks, then at the ticket office and then at the lift entrance.
Precisely for this reason, for buying the ticket I absolutely recommend booking it online with the skip-the-line ticket because, as with the Louvre, the queue can be really very long.
6 – Who built the Eiffel Tower
So, by now you’ll have understood that the Eiffel Tower has been enchanting visitors to Paris for more than 135 years.
But who is behind this work?
Who built the Eiffel Tower?
The engineer who designed it and had the tower built was Gustave Bönickhausen, known as… guess what: Eiffel.
Although he was of German origin, his family had been living in France for several generations, and one of his ancestors had added the word “Eiffel” to the surname, in memory of the region they came from. The Eifel is in fact a beautiful region of the Rhineland, and it was easier for the French to pronounce than the original surname.
As the years went by, and to hide the German origins of his name, Gustave began to use only the surname Eiffel.
But who was this man and why did he build the Eiffel Tower?
Born in 1832, Gustave Eiffel began working with metal structures as early as 1856. The use of metal in architecture was very cutting-edge at the time, and the new discoveries in metallurgy made it possible to exploit materials that were both flexible and extremely solid.
At just 26 he built the railway bridge of Bordeaux, with which he was able to begin a series of experiments. Once he had founded his company, Eiffel devoted himself to designing buildings, viaducts and structures that made him famous throughout Europe.
7 – Gustave Eiffel: much more than an engineer
Gustave Eiffel worked in Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Algeria and many other places. He is known above all for the Eiffel Tower, but there is another work he helped to create and that you surely know at least by name.
It was in fact he who designed the internal structure of the Statue of Liberty in New York. Not everyone knows that the Statue of Liberty is a French work, sent by ship to celebrate the centenary of American independence.
It was shipped disassembled and ready to be put together, IKEA-style, so to speak.
Among his other famous works there is also the Budapest Nyugati station, whose glass-and-metal façade is a perfect example of the architecture of this historical period.
Most of his constructions are bridges, but there is also an extremely ambitious project that led him to be accused of corruption: the opening of the Panama Canal, for which Gustave Eiffel designed an ingenious system of locks to let the ships pass through.
Unfortunately the funds for the canal’s construction ruined many investors, entrepreneurs and politicians, because of the so-called “Panama scandal”.
In the end Gustave Eiffel was acquitted, but his reputation suffered so much that he decided to leave business and devote himself to the study of aerodynamics.
Has this made you want to discover other corners of the French capital? Take a look at the Sainte-Chapelle with its stained-glass windows, the Petit Palais (free!) and bohemian Montmartre: Paris never stops amazing.
