Paris icon and icon of France, the Eiffel Tower, great "Iron Lady", overlooks 324 meters of the City of Light. Vertiginous emblem of the Industrial Revolution in the heart of Paris, nail the Universal Exhibition of 1889, the Eiffel Tower and rejuvenates ever forget his age. Adorned with gold from the dark (since 1985), it sparkles five minutes before each hour from the transition to the year 2000 Again, a temporary installation made permanent. With its delicate silhouette, graceful and breathtaking, the Eiffel Tower was to be short-lived when it was built by Gustave Eiffel in 1889.
Popular with visitors for 120 years ...
His fate was quite different: it has never been destroyed, saved by his huge success with the public at the Universal Exhibitions of 1889 and 1900, and by scientific experiments that Eiffel favored. After a career devoted solely for radio (first X-ray transmissions in 1898 or the first public radio in 1925) and telecommunications (up DTT), she sees an influx of tourists from the fifties up to become the second largest tourist attraction in France after the gardens of the Château de Versailles.
Since its visitor numbers are steadily rising. Today, of the 7 million annual visitors, 75% are of foreign origin and see the Eiffel Tower as a prerequisite of their stay. It must be said that "the Iron Lady" features prominently in any report about Paris. It is an inspiring setting for numerous films, especially since The End of the World Abel Gance, Big Style in 1930, it has everything to embody Paris, France, and Parisian fantasy.
An outsized full of restaurants and attractions monument
The construction of Gustave Eiffel required. Haute 303 m (without antennas), it weighs more than 10,000 tons and is made up of 18,000 metal pieces together by 2.5 million rivets. It was painted about twenty times, and has even lightened 1340 tonnes superfluous at a major renovation campaign in 1985.
120 years of kick-off and final bouquets
With the Champ-de-Mars, beautiful Parisian park which spreads at his feet, and on the other side of the Seine the Trocadero esplanade with views apotheosis in the Tower, the Eiffel Dame has long the scene of dramatic lighting and milestones: fireworks July 14 fire, fireworks 2000, blue Tower for the French Presidency of the EU or multicolored for 120 years, facilities (ice rink a garden ...).
More than a monument, it has become the "soul" of the City of Light in the firmament of the Seine and the Ciel de Paris. "Useless and irreplaceable Building, familiar world and heroic symbol, witness to a century and always new monument, inimitable and endlessly reproduced object ..." said Roland Barthes (The Eiffel Tower, Delpirre editor, 1964).
A climb above the skies of Paris
To achieve the first two floors, you have to take the elevator or climb the stairs - 704 steps to the second floor. The climb offers an unusual visit to the heart of the steel structure of the Tower, with unique views of the capital.
The second floor can admire all Paris monuments, Notre Dame Cathedral, the Louvre and its Pyramid, the Arc de Triomphe and even the distance, the Palace of Versailles. Each floor offers visitors a wide range of visual, cultural or taste breaks: path "Epic Eiffel tower" and Cineiffel the first to discover unusual images of the Tower, gourmet restaurant Le Jules Verne in the second, reconstruction of the office of Gustave Eiffel and champagne bar dizzying summit ...
In the evening, since the available tower up to 23 hours, the City of Light is revealed, providing a spectacle in bright and colorful lights on starry night background
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