Be sure to reserve well ahead for peak times, which includes most of the summer dates open up 60 days out (at 8:30 Paris time), and can sell out within hours. That's a shame, especially when it's fast, easy, and free to book a reservation online. Those who just show up with no prebooked ticket are likely to waste lots of time in the initial entry line - in summer, waits of one to two hours are the norm (weekends and holidays can be worse). Here are my tips for making it fun, time-efficient, and memorable:īook tickets in advance. To visit this 1,000-foot-tall ornament today, you'll battle crowds and pay about $0 per person (for the elevator to the top) - but it's well worth it. (The French ended up using one of the transmitters to jam German radio communications during World War I.) But designer Gustave Eiffel - an inveterate tinkerer - added a radio antenna and telegraph transmitters to the top, and the French government decided they'd made the tower too useful to tear down. Remarkably, the original plan was to dismantle the tower after 20 years. It was meant to demonstrate to the world that France had the know-how and money to erect the tallest structure in the world. Put together like an 18,000-piece erector set, made of iron beams held together with 2.5 million rivets, the tower was a pure showpiece, with no functional purpose. The first visitors ascended in 1889, the year the Paris World's Fair opened with the tower as its grand centerpiece. But once you make the eye-popping ascent - and ear-popping descent - you'll be in the exclusive society of some 250 million people who have made the Eiffel Tower one of the most visited monuments in the world. Sure, it's crowded and expensive, and other spots in Paris offer (arguably) better views. Going up the Eiffel Tower is one of the great travel thrills in Europe.
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