Eiffel Tower Hosted Visit in English with Optional Summit Paris

Rue de la Manutention and the walk along the Seine

The visit begins at 7 Rue de la Manutention, a quiet street in the 16th district between Avenue du Président-Wilson and the river, beside the Palais de Tokyo and the city's museum of modern art. It is a smart choice of meeting point: the tower is in view almost immediately, and the walk towards it along the Right Bank gives you the photo you came for, with the full height of the structure rising above the Seine and the Pont d'Iéna in the foreground.

How to get to the meeting point is easy: Iéna and Alma-Marceau metro stations on line 9 are each about five minutes away on foot. Your host sets off from in front of the stairs at the booked time, so arrive a few minutes early. The walk to the tower takes about fifteen minutes and is flat, with the host explaining the Trocadéro hill, the river and the bridge as you go.

The Eiffel Tower and its separate entrance

Built in twenty-six months for the World's Fair of 1889, the Eiffel Tower was the tallest structure on earth until 1930 and remains the symbol of Paris. Its four iron pillars stand on the Champ de Mars, named after the points of the compass, and the entrances with their security screening sit between them. With this hosted visit you pass through a separate entrance with a reserved ticket rather than joining the ticket-buying line, which is the main practical advantage of an Eiffel Tower tour over turning up on the day.

Your host shares the story of the engineer whose company designed the tower, the protests of the artists who called it a monstrosity, the two and a half million rivets and the paint that must be renewed roughly every seven years. Is the Eiffel Tower worth visiting with a host? If you like having the context before the view, yes: the explanations end at the tower and you then explore freely.

The 1st and 2nd floors

All movements between floors on this visit are by elevator. The first stop is the 2nd floor at 115 metres, the level with the most detailed view of the city: the Trocadéro across the river, the long lawns of the Champ de Mars, the dome of Les Invalides, the Louvre beside the Seine and Montmartre on its hill to the north. Open galleries run round all four sides, with telescopes and information panels to help you identify what you see.

The 1st floor, at 57 metres, is where the transparent floor lets you look straight down at the esplanade, and where exhibition panels explain the construction and the lighting of the tower. Allow at least twenty minutes on each of these two levels. If you book the evening option, the 2nd floor is also the best place to watch the lights of Paris come on and the tower sparkle on the hour.

The summit at 276 metres

The default option includes summit access by elevator, so from the 2nd floor you take the second lift to the top platform at 276 metres, the highest public viewpoint in Paris. Up here the city becomes a complete panorama: the Seine curving west towards the Bois de Boulogne, the glass towers of La Défense, the Arc de Triomphe at the hub of its twelve avenues, Montparnasse Tower to the south and the hills beyond the suburbs on a clear day.

A glazed level shelters you from the wind, with panels naming the landmarks, and an open terrace above gives the feeling of standing at the top of the city. The best time to visit the Eiffel Tower summit is a clear late morning, when the air is sharpest, and the 11:30 start of this visit puts you up there at exactly that hour. In strong wind the summit may close; the visit then continues on the lower floors.

The stairs down and the Champ de Mars

At the end of the visit you may choose to descend from the 2nd floor by the stairs rather than the elevator. The 674 steps to the ground take about twenty minutes and are well worth it for anyone with reasonable fitness: you pass through the iron lattice itself, see the rivets and beams up close and watch the view change at every landing. Those who prefer can simply ride the elevator down.

You finish on the Champ de Mars, the long park laid out for military parades that now hosts picnics and the classic lawn photo of the tower. From here the Trocadéro gardens are a ten-minute walk across the Pont d'Iéna, the Seine piers for sightseeing boats are at the foot of the tower and Bir-Hakeim metro on line 6 is the nearest station for the rest of your day in Paris.