Eiffel Tower Guided Visit by Elevator, 2nd Floor or Summit Paris

Rue de la Manutention and the Passerelle Debilly

The visit begins on the Right Bank at Rue de la Manutention, a quiet street that drops from the Palais de Tokyo and the museum of modern art down to the river, well away from the crowds around the tower itself. From the stairs where you meet your host it is a two-minute walk to the Passerelle Debilly, an iron footbridge built for the 1900 World's Fair with a pale green metal arch, which crosses the Seine with the Eiffel Tower filling the view downstream.

The bridge is the photo stop of the morning: the whole tower, the river and the Port Debilly moorings in one frame, with far fewer people than at the Trocadéro. The host uses the ten-minute walk along the Left Bank quay to explain how the tower was built, who paid for it and why Parisians first hated it, so that by the time you reach the security gates you know what you are looking at.

The Eiffel Tower, how it was built

The tower was designed in the office of the engineer Gustave Eiffel and built in two years, two months and five days between 1887 and 1889 as the entrance arch to the World's Fair marking the centenary of the French Revolution. Its 18,000 iron pieces, made in a factory outside Paris, were assembled with 2.5 million rivets by a workforce of a few hundred, and at 300 metres it was the tallest structure on earth until 1930; antennas have since raised it to 330 metres.

It was meant to stand for twenty years and was saved by its value for radio and, later, television. Repainted by hand roughly every seven years in a bronze shade graded lighter towards the top, it is visited by millions each year, which is why Eiffel Tower tickets for the summit sell out: this guided visit includes them, and the host takes you through a dedicated entrance to the elevator in one of the pillars.

The second floor, 115 metres above Paris

The first elevator rises diagonally inside a pillar to the second floor, 115 metres up, where the open galleries run right round the tower and the whole of Paris lies in a circle below. This is the level most people find the best for photographs: high enough to see the layout of the city, close enough to recognise the Louvre, the gold dome of Les Invalides, the Arc de Triomphe at the top of the Champs-Élysées, the white Sacré-Cœur on its hill and the river winding through it all.

The host points out the landmarks, then there is time to walk the galleries, use the panoramic maps and look down through the mesh at the Champ de Mars. Shops and a refreshment counter are on this level, as is the queue for the summit elevator, where summit ticket holders wait their turn before the final ascent.

The summit at 276 metres

From the second floor a separate glass-walled elevator climbs through the narrowing iron to the summit, the highest public viewpoint in Paris at 276 metres. There are two levels: an enclosed room with windows and, above it, an open-air gallery protected by railings where the wind is real and the view on a clear day reaches about 70 kilometres, far beyond the city. A reconstruction of the engineer's private office shows how the top of the tower looked in 1889.

The summit is the reason to choose the default option: Paris from here looks like a map, with the Seine as a silver line and the towers of La Défense on the horizon. Allow twenty to thirty minutes at the top, longer if you want to find every landmark, and remember that in high winds the summit can close for safety, in which case the visit continues on the second floor.

The Champ de Mars and the Trocadéro, after the visit

The visit ends at the foot of the tower, and the best places to see it from the ground are a short walk away. The Champ de Mars, the long green park behind the tower that runs to the École Militaire, gives the classic full-length view from the lawns, while across the river the Trocadéro esplanade on its rise gives the postcard angle with nothing in the way. Both are free and open all day.

Is the Eiffel Tower worth visiting after going up? Yes: on the ground you appreciate the scale of the four feet and the arches, and after dark the tower is lit in gold and sparkles for five minutes on the hour. If you have booked the 11:30 visit, lunch on the Champ de Mars and an afternoon at the Trocadéro gardens or the museums of the Palais de Chaillot make a natural continuation.