Eiffel Tower Gets New Transparent First Floor For 125th Anniversary
The iconic Eiffel Tower in Paris, France just celebrated its 125th anniversary by completely renovating the first floor. Tourists will have an exciting new reason to visit the Eiffel Tower because it now features a see-through platform to look down through glass to the ground below.
According to Forbes, the entire first level of the tower was modernized with a transparent glass floor and a railing, allowing visitors to gaze down from the Eiffel Tower at a 57 meter height. This is a feature many tall monuments have added, such as the CN Tower’s glass floor in Toronto and the protruding glass room in Chicago’s Willis Tower. The Eiffel Tower may be late to the glass floor party but the 125th anniversary renovations have brought a lot of other new features to the attraction as well.
The Eiffel Tower’s first floor facilities have been totally redone to better host visitors, including a new pavilion housing that holds a brand new welcome center to inform guests about what the Eiffel Tower has to offer. The tower’s first floor also has a new boutique and a restaurant. Guests can also find a museum full of information about the Eiffel Tower’s history, sharing some of the mysterious secrets of Paris’ most famous attraction. In addition, the Eiffel Tower has also added better ease of access for people with disabilities.
According to The Huffington Post, the Eiffel Tower’s renovations cost 30 million euros to complete. A recent effort to modernize the Eiffel Tower has resulted in replacing 95 percent of the lights with LEDs and adding solar panels to provide half of the Eiffel Tower’s hot water.
CNN reported on the Eiffel Tower’s latest upgrades, claiming that the new glass floor has become an extremely popular spot for daring selfies. People have been snapping photos of themselves lying down on the Eiffel Tower’s transparent first floor and sharing them on social media. The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, doesn’t mind how visitors spend their time at the Eiffel Tower as long as they’re excited to be there. Apparently, many foreign visitors to the Eiffel Tower have been disappointed lately, so Mayor Hidalgo hoped the tower’s anniversary updates would freshen up the city “without ruining our history.”
“I hear that Paris has lost its shine and attractiveness. It’s not true.”
The Eiffel Tower gets a brand new 1st floor today… Enjoy this breathtakingly high experience! #TourEiffel pic.twitter.com/985Os8Rg84
— Anne Hidalgo (@Anne_Hidalgo) October 6, 2014
