Eiffel Tower

When Gustave Eiffel’s company finished assembling the tower in March 1889, the man whose name it bears had essentially nothing to do with its original conception. Two of his engineers, Maurice Koechlin and Emile Nouguier, sketched the idea on June 6, 1884, a 300-meter metal pylon that Eiffel initially dismissed outright. He only came around after architect Stephen Sauvestre dressed it up with arched pedestals and glass-walled pavilions. Eiffel then bought the patent rights from both engineers for roughly 1% of construction costs each, and history remembered only him. That gap between myth and reality is, in many ways, the perfect preparation for visiting the tower itself: it rewards the curious and punishes the credulous.

The tower is currently undergoing what the Societe d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel calls the biggest renovation campaign in forty years. The 20th repainting in the structure’s history is underway, returning the ironwork to a warmer, more golden ochre shade, closer to the yellow-brown Gustave Eiffel chose in 1907. The colour shift is subtle but real: photographs taken from the Trocadero in morning light now show something closer to warm bronze than the grey-green most visitors picture. Work crews have also been modernising the elevator systems, and the top floor was temporarily closed from early January through February 2026 while work on the summit-level infrastructure was completed. As of mid-2026 it is fully accessible again, though you should check the official site for any short-notice closures before booking, since summit access can be suspended during harsh weather with little warning.

Tickets, Prices, and the Booking Reality

Prices for 2026 break down like this, all per adult over 25:

• Stairs to the second floor: €14.80
• Lift to the second floor: €23.50
• Stairs then lift to the summit: €28.00
• Lift all the way to the summit: €36.70

Youth (ages 12 to 24) pay roughly half the adult rate. Children 4 to 11 pay about a quarter. Under-4s get in free, but you still need to book a free ticket for them, a detail that catches parents off guard at the gate.

Book online at least a few weeks out, especially for summit slots in July and August. The system opens 60 days in advance and summit tickets vanish fast around the golden-hour window between 8 and 10 pm in summer. There is a real phenomenon where people queue for hours on the assumption they can walk up without a booking and then discover the timed-entry system means they cannot just join the lift queue. The stairs option remains the more forgiving route for spontaneous visitors, since stair slots are occasionally still available on the day, but from late September 2026 all ticket types, including stairs, will require advance booking through the official ticketing site.

One honest opinion worth having before you spend €36.70: the summit is not the revelation most people expect. The second floor at 116 metres gives you a panoramic view that is, for most purposes, just as good. The top deck at 276 metres adds height but removes the texture, the building details, the human scale of the city. You are above the clouds of a low grey Paris day and see nothing at all. Save the summit ticket for a clear morning when visibility stretches past the La Defense towers on the western horizon. If the sky is hazy, the second floor is the better value by some distance.

Getting There

The tower sits on the Left Bank in the 7th arrondissement, and Paris public transport gets you there efficiently if you know which lines to use.

Metro Line 6 is the most satisfying approach: from the Bir-Hakeim station, a five-minute walk, you cross the ornate double-decker bridge of the same name and see the tower grow from behind Haussmann rooflines as you walk. The lower level of Bir-Hakeim bridge is itself one of the best photograph spots in Paris for the tower, the stone arches framing the ironwork above the Seine. Metro Line 8 drops you at Ecole Militaire on the south side of the Champ de Mars, a ten-minute walk through the park. RER C to Champ de Mars Tour Eiffel station is the other reliable option, a short walk from the south entrance.

From CDG airport, the RER B south to Saint-Michel Notre-Dame, then a transfer to RER C toward Pontoise alighting at Champ de Mars Tour Eiffel, takes 60 to 75 minutes total and costs around €11 for a single adult. The flat-rate taxi from CDG to the Left Bank is €65 in 2026, covering any destination in the 7th, and takes 45 minutes to an hour depending on traffic, sometimes longer in the evening rush. From Orly, the Orlyval shuttle connects to RER B at Antony, then follow the same chain; total journey is around 50 to 60 minutes and roughly €12 to €14. A taxi from Orly runs about €40 to €50 depending on your exact destination and the time of day.

Card payments are accepted everywhere in Paris, including on public transport. Cash is useful at small boulangeries and a handful of traditional bistros but genuinely not necessary. Tipping is not compulsory: a round-up to the nearest euro in a cafe is appreciated but a formal service tip is expected only in mid-range and above restaurants, typically 5 to 10 percent if the service merited it.

The Light Show and When to Show Up

Every hour on the hour after dark, 20,000 gold-tinted bulbs covering the tower’s structure switch on simultaneously for five minutes. The first sparkle fires at the first full hour after sunset, which in mid-June falls around 10 pm and in December can start as early as 5 pm. The final show runs at 11 pm, after which the golden wash fades at 11:45 pm. On summer evenings you effectively get two sparkle windows before everything goes dark: 10 pm and 11 pm. If you want to guarantee you see both shows, position yourself before 10 pm and stay through 11.

The best viewing spot for the sparkle is not the Trocadero plaza despite what every tour operator will tell you. The crowd there after dark is genuinely overwhelming, the selfie-stick density is remarkable, and pickpockets work the crowd with professional efficiency. Instead, walk south across Pont d’Iena and find a position on the Champ de Mars lawn about 200 metres from the base. You are inside the sparkle rather than watching it from a distance. The full tower fills your field of vision, and the grassy darkness around you means the light plays dramatically against nothing.

The Trocadero is also the most scam-heavy zone in Paris. The petition scam operates constantly: small groups approach tourists with clipboards, claiming to represent a charity for the deaf. While you read the petition, an accomplice dips into your bag. Walk straight past, make no eye contact, and do not stop. The bracelet tie-up is the other common one, mostly from male vendors who approach single travellers near the north pillar; they loop a string around your wrist before you realise what is happening and then demand payment. The gold ring scam, where someone pretends to find a ring at your feet and offers it to you for a small token, still runs near Pont d’Iena. None of these are dangerous if you know to expect them, but they are genuinely irritating and the petition version can lead to a pickpocket getting your wallet.

The Tower on a Technical Level

The structure contains 18,038 individual iron components, each machined to a tenth of a millimetre accuracy and pre-fabricated off-site before being assembled on the Champ de Mars. Remarkably, the entire skeleton went up in twenty-six months, completed in March 1889. In summer, the iron expands enough that the tower grows by up to 15 centimetres in height. In winter it contracts back. This means the height printed on any static information board is technically a seasonal approximation.

The curvature of the four main uprights is not aesthetic decoration but the result of a mathematical calculation designed to channel wind pressure into the interior of the structure, dispersing force rather than resisting it directly. Eiffel wrote about this calculation in detail; the tower does not so much withstand the wind as redirect it. At the top, even in a moderate wind, you can feel the platform moving. Engineers measured a sway range of up to 12 centimetres at the summit in high gusts. Most visitors notice this and assume something is wrong. Nothing is. The movement is intentional.

The apartment at the summit is a detail most visitors never hear about. Gustave Eiffel built a small private apartment just below the tip, fitted with a piano, a sitting room, laboratory equipment and a bathroom. He used it primarily for scientific work: atmospheric pressure measurements, wind resistance experiments, and observations with Thomas Edison, who visited in 1889. When Paris society heard about the apartment they were desperate to rent it, offering sums that would have been significant even by today’s standards. Eiffel refused them all. The apartment survived and is now accessible as a museum exhibit at the summit level, furnished with period reproductions.

The tower was originally intended to stand for only 20 years, scheduled for demolition at the end of the 1889 Universal Exposition’s lease. Paris critics had been vicious about it from the beginning: a 1887 open letter signed by three hundred artists and architects called it an “eyesore” and a “blot on the city.” Maupassant reportedly ate lunch at the tower’s restaurant specifically because it was the one place in Paris from which he could not see it. Eiffel saved the structure by commissioning a radio antenna at the top in 1898, transforming the tower into a communications mast. It later jammed German radio communications during the First World War. Utility was its salvation, and the critics quietly moved on to other targets.

Where to Eat

Le Jules Verne, on the second floor, now holds two Michelin stars under chef Frederic Anton. A tasting menu runs from €295 for five courses to €330 for seven; weekday lunches offer a somewhat lighter option at around €140 for the carte. The food is genuinely exceptional and the kitchen is serious, but the setting generates a specific kind of self-consciousness: you are eating in a glass box suspended over Paris while coaches disgorge tourists sixty metres below. Some people love that; others find it distracting. Book 90 days out. It gets full.

Madame Brasserie, on the first floor, opened in June 2022 under chef Thierry Marx and occupies the same approximate price point as a good neighbourhood bistro but with a more refined execution. Lunch menus start at €48 per person; dinner runs from €90 for the Gustave menu up to €175 for the full tasting experience. The signature dish that gets most attention is the boeuf bourguignon reworked as a terrine, which sounds gimmicky but works. Book ahead here too, though slots open up more frequently than Jules Verne.

For a meal that does not involve a reservation three months in advance, the 7th arrondissement’s restaurant strip along Rue Saint-Dominique delivers better value than almost anywhere else near the tower. Le Florimond, a few streets north of the tower, has been serving classic bistro plates for thirty years: poached egg on lentils, duck confit, tarte tatin. It costs about €35 to €45 per person for three courses with a carafe of house wine, and feels entirely local in a way that the immediate tower precinct never does. The neighbourhood’s other reliable constant is the network of small fromageries and charcuteries along Rue Cler, a pedestrianised market street about a ten-minute walk from the base; if your hotel has a bar setup or you want a picnic on the Champ de Mars, this is where to provision.

Avoid the kiosks at the tower base. The food is not terrible but the price premium for a sandwich in the shadow of the south pillar is extreme, and you will pay €8 for something you could get for €3 on any street in the 7th.

Where to Stay

For the 7th arrondissement specifically, the Hotel de Londres Eiffel on Rue Augereau sits four blocks from the tower and gives you an honest room in a solid location for around €180 to €220 a night in high summer. It is not architectural or gastronomically remarkable; it is well-positioned and reliable. If money is less constrained, the Shangri-La Paris occupies the former residence of Prince Roland Bonaparte in the 16th, on the north bank of the Seine directly opposite the tower. The view from certain rooms across the river is extraordinary, and breakfast on the terrace on a clear morning qualifies as one of those Paris experiences that is genuinely hard to replicate. Expect to pay from €700 upward per night in July.

The Saint-Germain-des-Pres neighbourhood in the 6th, a twenty-minute walk east, gives you more good hotels at moderate prices and a better restaurant density than the immediate 7th. You lose the convenience of walking to the tower in five minutes, but you gain actual neighbourhood life: bakeries that are not tour-group targets, cafes where the croissants are not €5.

Overlooked Angles

The Trocadero is the obvious photograph location and, precisely because of that, the worst one on any day after 9 am. Two alternatives worth knowing:

Rue de l’Universite in the 7th, running east to west about 400 metres from the base, gives you the tower framed between Haussmann apartment buildings with a street-level vanishing point. Early morning, before the delivery vehicles start, this is quiet and the light from the east catches the ironwork beautifully.

Avenue de Camoens in the 16th, a short street that angles toward the tower from the Trocadero hillside, frames the tower between two curved rows of buildings in a way that makes it seem compressed and near. It appears on almost no tourist map. The lack of crowds is noticeable.

For the light show, the Bir-Hakeim bridge lower deck is the underrated option. Stand at the midpoint and look east: the tower rises above the bridge’s ornamental iron columns and the Seine catches the light below. At 10 pm on a summer night this is one of the better free views in Europe.

Finally, the tower opens at 9:00 am in summer and the first hour after opening is the closest the experience comes to a quiet one. Timed-entry tickets for the 9:00 am slot are rarely snapped up as quickly as the sunset slots, and you get the elevator largely to yourself, the city below still holding its early-morning stillness before the Bateaux-Mouches and the coach parties arrive.

Book the morning slot, climb the stairs to the second floor at least one way to see the ironwork from inside rather than from below, and position yourself on the Champ de Mars lawn before 10 pm for the sparkle. Everything else is negotiable.