The Eiffel Tower: Built in 1889 to Last 20 Years, Still Standing

When Gustave Eiffel won the competition for the 1889 World’s Fair centrepiece, the Paris arts establishment called the design monstrous. Critics signed a petition describing it as “a gigantic black factory chimney” and “a hateful column of bolted metal.” The tower was contractually scheduled for demolition in 1909. It survived because it proved useful as a radio transmission tower. The critics are forgotten; the iron asparagus gets 7 million visitors per year and is the most visited paid monument on Earth.

You know this. You’ve seen the photographs. The real question is how to visit it properly without spending half a day in a queue.

Tickets: The Rules Have Tightened

Online booking through toureiffel.paris is the only sensible approach from March through November. Day-of queues run three to four hours on summer weekends. The booking window opens 60 days ahead; book as soon as that window opens if you’re visiting in peak season.

Current adult ticket prices: Summit by elevator is €36.70 (adults 25+), second floor by elevator is around €17-18, stairs to second floor is €14.80. Children under 4 enter free. The stair ticket is genuinely worth considering on a clear day: 674 steps to the second floor, considerably less waiting than any elevator option, and you can take the elevator back down.

Hours: mid-June through early September, 9:00 to 00:45 (last entry around 23:30); rest of the year 9:30 to 23:45. The tower runs late, and an evening visit with the city lights spread below is better than a midday visit when haze flattens the view.

Which Level

The second floor at 115 metres is where the city is most legible. Individual landmarks are still identifiable at this altitude; Paris’s Haussmann grid, the Seine’s curves, Montmartre’s white dome to the north, the La Defense towers 10 kilometres west - all visible and recognisable. The summit at 274 metres is spectacular but the scale becomes abstract; everything looks miniature rather than comprehensible. If you have the summit ticket, take it, but the second floor is where you’ll actually understand the city.

The first floor glass floor section, installed in 2014, lets you look straight down 57 metres to the Champ de Mars. It’s structurally sound. The experience of stepping onto it is strange enough to be worthwhile.

Viewing the Tower From Outside

The Trocadero Plaza directly across the Seine is the frontal view - the full tower, centred, at its best in the early morning before tour buses arrive. In the evening, the Champ de Mars at the base is where Parisians spread blankets and bottles of wine to watch the hourly light show (5 minutes of sparkle on the hour, every hour, from dusk until 1am). This is a legitimate thing to do and not merely a cliché.

Rue de l’Universite on the Left Bank gives you the pedestrian experience photographers don’t capture: the tower appearing between Haussmann buildings as you walk toward it, growing larger with each block. This is how it feels to live in this city, and it’s worth experiencing before you go up.

A Bateaux-Mouches cruise (approximately €17, runs every 30 minutes from near the Alma bridge) passes the tower at water level, which gives you the first and second floors overhead and a completely different sense of the structure’s scale.

Where to Eat Nearby

The restaurants immediately on the Champ de Mars facing the tower are tourist traps; the view they’re selling doesn’t justify the prices. Walk away.

Cafe du Commerce on Rue du Commerce, 10 minutes south of the tower, has been serving the 15th arrondissement since 1921 in a three-storey space with a central open atrium. Traditional bistro food at local prices - steak frites, roast chicken, house wine. Mains 18-26 euros.

Les Cocottes de Christian Constant on Rue Saint-Dominique does unpretentious bistro cooking in cast-iron cocottes with no reservations and fair prices (mains 16-24 euros). For the serious occasion, Le Jules Verne on the second floor of the tower itself is Alain Ducasse’s Michelin-starred restaurant with views that earn the price of the tasting menu (from 230 euros). Book through the tower website separately from your admission ticket.

Where to Stay

The 7th arrondissement immediately south of the tower is quiet and residential. Hotel Verneuil on Rue de Verneuil is a small boutique hotel in a 17th-century building that also happened to be where Serge Gainsbourg lived - there’s a small shrine in the courtyard. From about 200 euros. Hotel Londres Eiffel on Rue Augereau runs around 150 euros and is 10 minutes’ walk from the tower.