City Tour, Seine Cruise and Eiffel Tower Summit with Reserved Access

Overview

Six hours across Paris in three parts: a covered panoramic coach circuit, a one-hour glazed Seine cruise, and priority lift access to the summit of the Eiffel Tower, with a host throughout.

What to expect

• Meet the host and start the recorded commentary on your phone.
• The coach circuit of the central monuments.
• Your cruise ticket handed over on board.
• An hour on the water past the Louvre, the Orsay and Notre-Dame.
• The lifts to the second floor, then a change of car for the summit.
• Time at the top before the day closes.

Nobody knew how to build these lifts

The tower posed a problem no engineer had solved: a lift that climbs a leg which is both sloping and curved. Ordinary lifts run straight up a shaft. These had to follow the bend of the ironwork, changing angle as they rose, while carrying hundreds of people.

France wanted a French firm to do it and no French firm could. The contract for two of the pillars went to Otis, the American company, over objections — the rules for the 1889 exhibition favoured domestic suppliers, and the organisers had to concede that the expertise did not exist at home.

The machinery is still down there

What makes this more than a historical footnote is that the original solution is still running. The lifts in the east and west pillars work on water hydraulics installed at the end of the nineteenth century, and the great pistons and pulleys are visible to anyone who looks into the machine rooms at the base.

They have been maintained continuously rather than replaced. It is one of the oldest pieces of working passenger machinery anywhere, doing the same job it was built for, several million times a year.

Why you change lifts halfway

The summit is not reached by the same car. The curved lifts run as far as the second floor and stop, because above that the tower narrows into a straight vertical shaft and a different kind of lift takes over.

So the ascent comes in two stages with a transfer between them, which is not a delay but a consequence of the shape of the building.

The parts of the day

The cruise ticket is issued on the coach rather than bought at the quay, and can be used later the same evening if the timing suits you better.

The coach on this version is covered rather than open-topped, which trades the unobstructed view for shelter — worth knowing if the open deck was the appeal.

Practicalities

Priority access applies to the lift queue. The security screening at the base applies to every visitor regardless, and the summit itself closes in strong wind, decided on the day.

It is much colder at the top. Bring more than the forecast suggests, and your own earphones for the commentary.