Eiffel Tower, Paris

Next year the Tour Eiffel will undergo a real metamorphose. The first floor will be completely renovated starting at the spring 2012 and this for works expected to last eighteen months and to cost 25 million euro.
The reason according to the Mairie de Paris: few Parisians are visiting the Tour Eiffel symbol of Paris and France. I want to observe that if more Parisians would visit the Tower the lines would still be longer than now!

What will be spectacular on the first floor is that a glass floor will be created at the periphery of the central void. The glass floor will be 36 mm thick, the height is 58 m above the ground.
Visitors who might feel some phobia will not be obliged to walk on the glass floor.

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I would advise anyone to book the tickets for the Eiffel tower in adance on the internet if at all possible ( I certainly wish we had ) the queues are immense even if you get there 1/2 an hour before the official opening times as we did....be very ,very carefulll which queue you join depending on which ticket you want to purchase for example stairs only or stairs and lift or lifts only and decide if you want to go up halfway or right to the top..I would suggest if you go right to the top as we did on the lifts at a cost of E13.40 per ticket that you make the trip up in one go and then take your time to come back down level by level as the elevators get very full very quickly and I can imagine its a bit of stress to be stuck at the top if you or a member of your party dont like it!

The view from the top is vast (on a good day ) and Paris itself looks like a map view as there ar not many high rise buildings.

And if you can... go back and see it again at night....spectacular!

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Yes I know, everyone has tips about it, but I can´t skip it at my page either. Every sice I saw the photos of it as a child, I wanted to go to Paris. It was so beautyfu in my eyes. I saw it first time when I was 18, and i did even go to second floor then, even if my scare of hights was lot worse then. But sice it was bigger at bottom and more narrow up, it felt some how safer than buildings and towers as narrow at bottom as from the top. Or even worse for me: those witch are more narrow at the bottom like we do have in Tampere, Finland. I still can´t go to Näsinneula tower in Finland, but I could go to taller Eiffel. I think it might be a good start to someone scared of hights as I am.
Now when I went there 20 years later, I still didn´t want to go the top, but I did go to the second again. What was disapointment for me, was that we couldn´t go to first floor first to see the museum, the lift didn´t stop. We could have walked down to first from second, but that was too scary for me! so I missed the museum :(
I have tens of photos of Eiffel. By night, by day, by sunset..
But it was lovely anyway, again. I have heard some people saying it´s a disapointment when you go up there. Not for me!! There´s some kind of bare beauty at those iron structures. My husband thought the same.

We did go there at 22.00 (10 p.m.) this time, and it was nice because of the all lights. If i could choose better, I would go up an hour earlier to see the sunset, and get photos of it. It wasn´t the best time of photos when it got darker. But we wanted to book ahead, and when we did, only the latest times were free. So if you do book ahead, make it as early as you are sure of your coming. I did only check if there are free tickets for those days, I didn´t check the times early enough.

If you do have a ticket, you can go to shorter line. You can go in at the time marked on your ticket, and next about 20min. We did go little too early to the line, and were 21.50 at the gate. They asked somone, and then let us in. Some people were celebrating and had a bottle of champagne. It was not allowed to take bottles up, so they needed to drink it down there. But you can buy wine at second floor kiosk! Nor champagne sadly, but we did buy it anyway. And it was quite cheap actually! We thought it would cost a lot more. can´t say surely the price, but maybe around 3 to 4 euros for 2dl bottle. We took two bottles and drank it out watching the lights of Paris in the dark. It was a good start for our trip :)
And The tower twinkles for 5 to 10 min every half hour from 22 o´clock.

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Lots of people tell you not to bother climbing the Eiffel Tower, but I did not listen :)
The lines were not too long when I arrived and I decided to take both elevators and be on top of the Eiffel Tower my first night in Paris. I loved everything about it! The ride up, the view from both decks, the experience.
If you have time and if the lines are not too long, go for it! Paris looks so much different from the top of the Eiffel Tower!

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My advice for budget tourists visiting one of the World's costliest city's is to not miss sightseeing the "Eiffel Tower" and a boat cruise along the Seine river. Book your tickets for the "Eiffel Tower" lift ride in advance and then walk down to the pier and queue for an unforgettable cruise on the river Seine.

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A visit to Paris is nought without a visit to the Eiffel Tower. Paris' most famous landmark is visible from various places across the city. It is possible to take a lift up to various platforms on the tower at the first, second and top floor. At times, because of weather conditions, the top floor can be closed.

Each evening the tower is lit by a series of floodlights and at 11:00pm and midnight (noted in June 2007) there is a light show which makes the tower twinkle. Both locals and visitors gather in the two parks nearby with direct views of the tower to enjoy the shows.

UPDATE : SEPTEMBER 2011
The tower still performs its light shows in the evening, with later performances at the weekend. At 01:00, the show is just white light as the tower goes into darkness for the night.

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I haven't gone up the Eiffel Tower since Wednesday, October 26, 1966.

The reason for this is that I am a notorious queuophobe, meaning I try to avoid doing anything that requires standing in line for more than five or ten minutes.

That pretty much rules out the Eiffel Tower, doesn't it?

Well, there might be some relief on the way, maybe.

Since 2005 the tower has been run by a new public-utility company called the Société d'exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (SETE), of which the City of Paris holds 59.9% of the shares. Part of this company's mission is "to continually improve the reception, access and flow of visitors," and to do this they have recently announced a new plan which will (at some unspecified future time) allow visitors to reserve half-hour slots online.

Will this solve the problem? Who knows, but it's worth a try.

The president of SETE, Jean-Bernard Bros, who is also a deputy mayor of Paris in charge of tourism, has been quoted in the papers as saying: "Today, above all, we want visitors to leave with rich memories, with more time spent on the tower, less waiting in line, less pushing around."

Update 2011: The Eiffel Tower website now offers the option of buying tickets online. The online tickets are for the elevators only, not for the stairs. You have to buy the tickets at least one day in advance. First you decide which elevator you want to take (to the second floor or to the top) and how many people are in your party. Then you choose a time (“subject to availability”), fill in your contact information and pay with your credit card. Then you either print out your e-ticket or transfer it to your cell phone, provided you have a cell phone that can display bar codes.

I haven’t tried this yet for the Eiffel Tower, but the procedure sounds very much like the way I routinely order e-tickets for rail travel or for opera performances. The instructions for this are available on the Eiffel Tower website in nine languages, including Chinese, Japanese and Arabic.

When you have bought an e-ticket, they say you should please “make sure that you turn up at the time you booked. If you’re late, you may not be allowed in." (Same as at the opera.)

Second photo: Boats on the Seine near the tower.

Third photo: Lying on the grass looking up at the tower.

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When we last visited Paris in 1990, we were on tour package covering 10 countries in 11 days and didn't really got to see the Eiffel Tower up close.

21 years onwards, we decided to travel to Paris on our own and get really close to the Eiffel Tower and other famous spots in Paris.

This time round, we arrived in Paris on 14th July (which is Bastille Day) and managed to watch the fireworks and lights display of the Eiffel Tower.

We didn't go up the Eiffel Tower as the queue is pretty long. Instead, we chose to go to Basilique Sacré-Coeur and view a panoramic view of Paris from there.