Ninety seconds on Eiffel Tower
The second floor is the height that repays the visit: low enough over the rooftops to pick out the domes and bridges you came to Paris for. From the summit you see further, but the landmarks look tiny.
Allow fifteen to twenty minutes for the airport-style security at entry 1, on the south side, or entry 2, on the east, and be under the tower by the time on your ticket. The gardens and the esplanade under the tower are free to enter. Inside, green kiosks are for lift tickets and blue ones for stairs.
The queue for the lifts is usually longer than the one for the stairs, so climbing is often quicker, but the stairs can close at 6pm in some periods. You go straight to the highest level on your ticket and work down. A summit ticket means a second lift from the second floor, scanned again, and a wait at busy hours.
Save the first floor for the way down, for the glass floor and a drink. The lift back down stops there anyway.
Explore the rest of Paris
The guide to Paris: what to do, and where to stay.
The former royal palace holds roughly 35,000 works on display, including the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory of…
A granite islet crowned by an abbey rises from a tidal bay on the Normandy and Brittany border, joined to the mainland by a causeway…