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Do look down! Eiffel Tower gets glass floor

October 6, 2014

The Eiffel Tower was never a natural home for a vertigo sufferer, but new renovations make the Parisian landmark even less suitable for the faint hearted. Visitors have cautiously set foot on the new glass floor.

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Änderungen am Eiffelturm in Paris
Image: Reuters/J. Naegelen

The Eiffel Tower on Monday opened its renovated first floor to the public, complete with glass panels in the floor designed to afford visitors stunning views of the French capital and the renowned structure itself. The four small viewing sections are part of a two-year, 30-million-euro ($38-million) refurbishment project, designed to make people linger longer in an often forgotten part of the tower.

The first floor of the Eiffel Tower, a "mere" 57 meters (187 feet) off the ground, was never a particularly popular spot for visiting tourists, who usually made a beeline for the viewing platform nearer the top of the 324-meter structure. Now, breathtaking views of Paris and of the intricate ironwork designs by architect Gustave Eiffel are visible from the first floor, which has also been made wheelchair-accessible.

Änderungen am Eiffelturm in Paris
It hardly seemed possible to create more photo opportunities around the Eiffel TowerImage: Reuters/J. Naegelen

Anne Hidalgo, Paris' mayor, officially cut the ribbon on the new first floor on Monday, although tourists have been taking in the new views for around a month.

"I hear that Paris has lost its attractiveness," Hidalgo said. "It's not true. We are an attractive city and capable of innovation without damaging our history."

One Jordanian tourist, Yousef Mobaidin, told the AP news agency that he was "terrified" by the "really scary" vista. Aaron Smith from Hawaii also admitted to a case of the butterflies, hoping that "they did a good job building it."

The city of Paris, which holds a majority stake in the revered monument, also said that wind turbines and solar panels were installed as part of the renovations, to generate some of the tower's power. The visitors' toilets will also be run partly with rainwater. Architecture agency Moatti-Riviere completed the renovations.

"We wanted to set an example," said Jean-Bernard Bros, the president of SETE, which operates Paris' "Iron Lady."

Symbolbild Frankreich
Around 7 million people visited the Parisian landmark last yearImage: PATRICK KOVARIK/AFP/Getty Images

Erected for the 1889 World Fair, the iron-lattice tower is the world's most-visited paying attraction; operators SETE generated a turnover of 73 million euros in 2013. Among other regular maintenance work, the structure is repainted once every seven years, a job involving some 60 tonnes of paint.

Roughly seven million people, around 85 percent of them not from France, visited the Eiffel Tower last year.

msh/nm (AFP, AP)