The Eiffel Tower, the beating heart of Paris

Translated from Dutch. View the original post here

#yoorsworldtrip2021 #paris

'I see the Eiffel Tower', I said enthusiastically on a hot day in August. It was a sentence that would haunt me for a long time. I am plagued with it to this day. We already had quite a ride that day, maybe about 10 km. The moment I spoke the winged words, we were standing near Notre-Dame. A walk from Notre-Dame to the Eiffel Tower is about 5 km away. When something is in the picture, it does not mean that it is already nearby. Certainly not in an immense city like Paris.

If you have been to Paris, you must have seen at least the Eiffel Tower, I thought, even if you have admired it many times before. Yet that's something I'm not so sure of today. Weighs the charm of the Eiffel Tower against that of, for example, Notre-Dame?

What you didn't know about the Eiffel Tower
Have you been to Paris regularly and have seen the Eiffel Tower countless times?? Or have you just read a lot about it? Well, there's probably some things you didn't know about the Eiffel Tower.. Below you will find a list of things you probably didn't know about the Eiffel Tower.

1. The Eiffel Tower is painted every 7 years. Here, about 60 tons of paint go on. Waste? No, because the layer is needed to protect the tower from weather. In 2021, the Eiffel Tower will be painted again, then in a yellow-brown color. This is in honor of the 2025 Olympics.
2. In the beginning there was no elevator at all in the Eiffel Tower. So when you wanted to go up, you really had to use the stairs. It took an average of 1 hour! No wonder, because there are about 1665 steps.
3. About the construction of the Eiffel Tower was done about 2 years. About 250 construction workers and 50 engineers participated in this. Definitely a handsome piece of work that they were ready so quickly.
4. Although you may think: the higher, the better, at the Eiffel Tower you have better visibility from the second floor than anywhere else.. So you can still distinguish the buildings in the area well and you still have a beautiful view. No wonder, because you're already here at over 300 meters altitude.
5. Something you don't want to know before you go to Paris for a day: the Eiffel Tower is France's most popular suicide site.
6. The floor of the first floor, at about 115 meters, is now made of glass. So you can really look down here perpendicular. A good test to check if you have a strong stomach?
7. In World War II, the staff of the Eiffel Tower took parts of the elevators, to sabotage them for the German soldiers. After all, they could not make optimal use of the Eiffel Tower, but they would always have to take the stairs. After the war, the parts returned miraculously.
8. In 2024 a large new park around the Eiffel Tower will be opened. The area becomes really car-free. How beautiful that will look!
9. At first, the Parisians were not at all happy with that ugly tower. They even set up a petition to get that sad lamppost removed.
10. The Eiffel Tower is one of the most popular sights in the world. In ordinary years there are even some 7 million visitors to the Eiffel Tower. This makes it the most visited landmark in the world. Make no mistake, because with 7 million visitors a year, you can count on about 20,000 visitors a day. Of course, in the high season there are much more.