The Eiffel Tower. A majestic monument over 300 metres high with breathtaking views of course, but what if there was more to see, secret areas that most visitors can’t access?

We decided to go on a special guided visit that includes a vast bunker attached to the Tower that used to be a TV studio, the machine room for the lifts and a last stop on top of the Michelin-starred restaurant the Jules Verne!

And of course, all this is just a short distance from our hotels! Here’s our photo report of this very special visit.

Going up the Eiffel Tower is impressive in itself, but imagine seeing what most visitors don’t and can’t. A company called Cultival organises a number of original Paris visits (some – including this one – in English) and their backstage tour of the Tower sounded perfect for us. We love finding hidden and unusual places in Paris!

After having booked online and trying not to think about how expensive it is (29€ for adults, a whopping 24€ for kids), you’re told to meet at the arranged tim near the north pillar where – surprise surprise – there’s a bust of Gustave Eiffel himself.
From here our little group of 17 people and our guide walked two minutes down the Champs de Mars, the huge lawn that runs down from the Eiffel Tower, to a small nondescript building that turned out to be the entrance to a bunker

Before we went in, our guide gave us a quick history lesson about the building of the Tower, and we even learned that despite Gustave Eiffel building it, he didn’t actually design it (architect Stephen Sauvestre did). So welcome to the Sauvestre Tower!

Next, we went down some steps to visit the bunker, but this part of our tour turned out to be a little disappointing. Stood in a dull grey corridor just inside, we were told about how the area used to serve as a TV / radio station, but that we couldn’t visit any of the rooms! The guide just showed us a map of the place and told us there were 800m²… that we weren’t allowed to see.

Five minutes later, we turned round and went back out. Curious but not great.
Things soon improved. We skipped the line to get into the Tower and went down some stairs to the machine room.

This was almost certainly once part of the main visit for everyone. Perhaps the ever-growing number of visitors has made it impracticable now? All the old machines are painted in bright colours and there are metal plaques signalling each machine.

A clever system of weight and trolleys allows the lifts to work, and it’s quiet poetic seeing everyone move so gracefully. Steampunk fans will love it – it’s almost like being back in 1900.

Next,, we took the lift up to the first, then second floor where our guide directed us to a gateway marked ‘no entry’ leading up onto the roof of the Jules Verne restaurant.

The space is pretty restricted here, and with the rainy windy weather it wasn’t very comfortable, but the view is spectacular and you get a great up-close view of the two wind turbines installed on the Tower last year, supposedly to generate electricity for the gift shop.

Whether they actually do is debatable – they didn’t turn at all the day we were there, and this could well just be a bit of greenwashing in the run-up to the COP21…
And the visit was over! Our guide left us on the second floor and told us we could hang around on the Tower as long as we liked. There certainly was a lot to look at…
After looking over the rooftops for while (it never gets old) we took the stairs down to the first floor (definitely worth it) when the (free!) ice rink was still in place. Then, back to reality… except that even once you reach the ground, there’s still something magical, almost unreal, about the Eiffel Tower. Amazing.
If you too would like to see the Eiffel Tower from a new perspective, learn about its history and go up to the second floor without waiting in a long line, this guided visit might well be for you. And if you want to go right to the top, ticket offices on the second floor are ready to sell you a ticket.

The tour is a little pricey (29€, whereas a ticket to the second floor costs just 11€), but for an extra special, once in a lifetime experience, it could well be worth it!

To book your ticket for the backstage tour of the Eiffel Tower, click here.

And to check out all our photos of the visit (yes, there are more!) click here.