Eiffel Tower, Paris, France - SpottingHistory.com

The Eiffel Tower (La tour Eiffel) is an iron lattice tower located on the Champ de Mars in Paris. It was named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower. Erected in 1889 as the entrance arch to the 1889 World's Fair, it was initially criticised by some of France's leading artists and intellectuals for its design, but has become both a global cultural icon of France and one of the most recognizable structures in the world. The tower is the tallest structure in Paris and the most-visited paid monument in the world.

The tower is 324 metres tall, about the same height as an 81-storey building. During its construction, the Eiffel Tower surpassed the Washington Monument to assume the title of the tallest man-made structure in the world, a title it held for 41 years, until the Chrysler Building in New York City was built in 1930. Because of the addition of the aerial atop the Eiffel Tower in 1957, it is now taller than the Chrysler Building by 5.2 metres (17 ft). Not including broadcast aerials, it is the second-tallest structure in France, after the Millau Viaduct.

The tower has three levels for visitors, with restaurants on the first and second. The third level observatory's upper platform is 276 m above the ground, the highest accessible to the public in the European Union. Tickets can be purchased to ascend by stairs or lift (elevator) to the first and second levels. The climb from ground level to the first level is over 300 steps, as is the walk from the first to the second level. Although there are stairs to the third and highest level, these are usually closed to the public and it is generally only accessible by lift.

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User Reviews

Crazy Thamizha (2 years ago)
Fantastic monument that everyone needs to see in their lifetime. Mind blowing architecture with restaurants and lifts on it. It has three floors. Entrance is free for everyone to roam around the Eiffel Tower but one has to pay to climb on it. Either you can take the stairs to climb or you can take the lift. One Adult has to pay 25 euros to go to the third and last floor of the Eiffel tower where you’ll get an awesome complete view of Paris. Worthy watch.

Amy Louise (2 years ago)
Iconic structure. Especially beautiful at night when lit up ☺

Mateusz Skorupski (2 years ago)
Magical place. Definitely best work of Gustave Eiffel. Trademark of Paris! Worth visiting at sunset, make sure to check out during light show, quite impressive! Even though queues are really long, the view from the top is breathtaking. If you're in Paris you have to see Eiffel Tower (at least be in the area). There are river tours nearby as well (great way to discover Paris bridges).

Geoffery Smith (2 years ago)
The Eiffel Tower is really cool. Our tour guide gave us so many historic details from when it was built to when they put in elevators. It’s very unique because it doesn’t fit into the skyline, but it is very intricately constructed. My daughter Samantha and I loved the view from the top, and the glass floor above ground. It also has gift shops. Just don’t buy from street vendors since it’s illegal. Buy from the legit shops. Anyways, this is one of my favorite places in all of Europe and it is a great setting with many views of the river, France’s Statue of Liberty, and the city across from Paris where there is a modern Arc de Triumph right in front of the old one. This is an absolutely fantastic place to go with family, friends, and even kids. It’s worth going to Paris just to go. Anyways, if you go anywhere in Europe, Paris is the most beautiful place you can visit. Please, please support this place by going there and getting a ticket.

ganesan ganesan (2 years ago)
Extremely breathtaking. Totally worth every minute. I never thought I would spend more than 3 hours in a place like this. But we did. We visited the first floor which has a restaurant, a cafe, and outdoor seating even in the winter. It's an igloo type of seating area to shield you from the cold. The restaurant doesn't open until dinner time. So we didn't get to eat there. In the second floor, it is very high up. We enjoyed the sights since we got there right before sundown and stayed until dark. They also have a cafe in the second floor, the coffee was good, and the macaroons were to die for. When we went to the first floor we went down the steps from the Second Floor, it wasn't that bad since it was going downhill , but on the way back up they told us we couldn't go up the elevator again so we had to go up the steps, that was a hike. The light show started at 6 p.m. And then every hour on the hour after that.

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Historic Site of the week

Quimper Cathedral

From 1239, Raynaud, the Bishop of Quimper, decided on the building of a new chancel destined to replace that of the Romanesque era. He therefore started, in the far west, the construction of a great Gothic cathedral which would inspire cathedral reconstructions in the Ile de France and would in turn become a place of experimentation from where would later appear ideas adopted by the whole of lower Brittany. The date of 1239 marks the Bishop’s decision and does not imply an immediate start to construction. Observation of the pillar profiles, their bases, the canopies, the fitting of the ribbed vaults of the ambulatory or the alignment of the bays leads us to believe, however, that the construction was spread out over time.

The four circular pillars mark the start of the building site, but the four following adopt a lozenge-shaped layout which could indicate a change of project manager. The clumsiness of the vaulted archways of the north ambulatory, the start of the ribbed vaults at the height of the south ambulatory or the choice of the vaults descending in spoke-form from the semi-circle which allows the connection of the axis chapel to the choir – despite the manifest problems of alignment – conveys the hesitancy and diverse influences in the first phase of works which spread out until the start of the 14th century.

At the same time as this facade was built (to which were added the north and south gates) the building of the nave started in the east and would finish by 1460. The nave is made up of six bays with one at the level of the facade towers and flanked by double aisles – one wide and one narrow (split into side chapels) – in an extension of the choir arrangements.

The choir presents four right-hand bays with ambulatory and side chapels. It is extended towards the east of 3-sided chevet which opens onto a semi-circle composed of five chapels and an apsidal chapel of two bays and a flat chevet consecrated to Our Lady.

The three-level elevation with arches, triforium and galleries seems more uniform and expresses anglo-Norman influence in the thickness of the walls (Norman passageway at the gallery level) or the decorative style (heavy mouldings, decorative frieze under the triforium). This building site would have to have been overseen in one shot. Undoubtedly interrupted by the war of Succession (1341-1364) it draws to a close with the building of the lierne vaults (1410) and the fitting of stained-glass windows. Bishop Bertrand de Rosmadec and Duke Jean V, whose coat of arms would decorate these vaults, finished the chancel before starting on the building of the facade and the nave.

Isolated from its environment in the 19th century, the cathedral was – on the contrary – originally very linked to its surroundings. Its site and the orientation of the facade determined traffic flow in the town. Its positioning close to the south walls resulted in particuliarities such as the transfer of the side gates on to the north and south facades of the towers: the southern portal of Saint Catherine served the bishop’s gate and the hospital located on the left bank (the current Préfecture) and the north gate was the baptismal porch – a true parish porch with its benches and alcoves for the Apostles’ statues turned towards the town, completed by an ossuary (1514).

The west porch finds its natural place between the two towers. The entire aesthetic of these three gates springs from the Flamboyant era: trefoil, curly kale, finials, large gables which cut into the mouldings and balustrades. Pinnacles and recesses embellish the buttresses whilst an entire bestiary appears: monsters, dogs, mysterious figures, gargoyles, and with them a whole imaginary world promoting a religious and political programme. Even though most of the saints statues have disappeared an armorial survives which makes the doors of the cathedral one of the most beautiful heraldic pages imaginable: ducal ermine, the Montfort lion, Duchess Jeanne of France’s coat of arms side by side with the arms of the Cornouaille barons with their helmets and crests. One can imagine the impact of this sculpted decor with the colour and gilding which originally completed it.

At the start of the 16th century the construction of the spires was being prepared when building was interrupted, undoubtedly for financial reasons. Small conical roofs were therefore placed on top of the towers. The following centuries were essentially devoted to putting furnishings in place (funeral monuments, altars, statues, organs, pulpit). Note the fire which destroyed the spire of the transept cross in 1620 as well as the ransacking of the cathedral in 1793 when nearly all the furnishings disappeared in a « bonfire of the saints ».

The 19th century would therefore inherit an almost finished but mutilated building and would devote itself to its renovation according to the tastes and theories of the day.

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