La Tour Eiffel - Eiffel Tower, Paris

The Eiffel Tower - La Tour Eiffel is an ironwork tower standing on the Champ de Mars beside the River Seine in Paris, France. The Eiffel Tower is the tallest structure in Paris and probably the most recognized monument in the world. Named after its designer, the engineer Gustave Eiffel, it is likely to be the most visited monument in the world with about 6.5million visitors per year, the structure is 1070 feet (320.75m) high which is about 80 storeys.

The Eiffel Tower is regularly struck by lightening. In 1902, there was a lightning strike, which caused enough damage to force the builders to reconstruct 300 feet of the upper section.

At the time of its construction in 1889, the Eiffel Tower replaced the Washington Monument as the world's tallest structure, a title it retained until 1930, when New York City's Chrysler Building (1063.33 ft tall) was completed. The Eiffel Tower is now only the fifth-highest structure in France. The Eiffel
Tower is the highest structure in Paris, with the second-highest being the Tour Montparnasse.

The structure of the Eiffel Tower has a calculated weight of 7300 tons. There are a total of 1660 steps, 360 to the first level, and another 359 to the second level. It is not possible for the public to reach the summit via the rest of the stairs; you have to use the lifts beyond the second platform. Lift tickets may be purchased at the base or at either viewing platform.

Depending on the ambient temperature, the top of the tower may shift away from the sun by over a foot (up to 18cm), through thermal expansion of the metal on the side facing the sun. The tower also sways 6-7cm in the wind.

Maintenance of the tower includes applying between 50 and 60 tons of three graded tones of paint every seven years to protect it from rust. On occasion, the colour of the paint is changed — the tower is currently painted a shade of brownish-gray. However, the tower is actually painted three different colours in order to make it look the same colour. The colours change from dark to light from top to bottom, but it looks the same because of the background (the sky being light and the ground being dark). On the first floor, there are interactive consoles hosting a poll for the colour to use for a future session of painting.

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