The Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel Tower - Paris, France

It's hard to get to Paris and not catch a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower while walking around the city and since Paris is the city of lights, you have to see it lit up. We caught the metro to Trocadero one evening and wondered around the Eiffel tower for about an hour and a half before walking back towards Notre Dame along the Seine.

Read on for more images and info.

The Eiffel Tower - Paris, France

We climbed up the Tower quite early in the evening on an overcast day. The views from the top were amazing and I'll upload them in a future post. The second floor of the tower is occupied by the Michelin starred Jules Verne restaurant. Getting a table here is always tough as it is usually booked out for a couple of months. We made a reservation when we got to Paris and were put on the waiting list. Since our chances were slim, we made plans to go off to Montmartre on the day. As luck would have it we got a call as we were walking out of the apartment, informing us that we had a table. Since we had other plans for the day, we couldn't make it but it's something for us to do next time.

The Eiffel Tower - Paris, France

The Eiffel Tower was built between 1887 and 1889 as the entrance for the centennial celebration of the French Revolution. The tower was named after it's designer, an engineer named Gustave Eiffel. A three hundred strong workforce used 18,038 pieces of iron and two and a half million rivets to build the tower. Although building the tower was risky, due to the fact that it was an open structure and had not intermediate floors, only one worker lost his life. In order to reduce the chance of an accident Eiffel took precautions such as movable staging, guard rails and screens.

The Eiffel Tower - Paris, France

The tower was criticised by the public and it was labelled an eyesore with several prominent figures, including Guy du Maupassant and Alexandre Dumas, expressing their displeasure. 

Zoning restrictions in Paris limit the height of buildings to 7 stories but Eiffel got a permit for the Tower and it was supposed to stand for 20 years and be dismantled in 1909. However, when the ownership of the tower was handed back to the city of Paris, it was not dismantled as it was valuable for communication purposes. The tower is now the most visited paid monument in the world.

The Eiffel Tower - Paris, France

All the images in this post were taken with the Canon 7D and 24-105mm combination. A tripod was used for all the night shots.