Building Mr. Eiffel’s Penthouse Apartment: A Tower Under Construction

A Parisian friend dropped some very interesting photographs in my inbox this week, some that I’d never seen before of the Eiffel Tower in its earliest days. I had previously come across time-lapse photographs of the Eiffel Tower in its various stages of construction, but none like this; none that went behind the scaffolding, right up close inside the growing skeleton…

London’s Abandoned Eiffel Tower Replica

When a tower made of 7,500 tons of steel and iron was unveiled at the Universal Exhibition of 1889 in Paris, it was an immediate triumph, made even more victorious in light of the controversy which had surrounded the Eiffel Tower prior to its opening. Protesters had argued to “imagine for a moment a giddy, ridiculous tower dominating Paris…

Stargazing for Aliens, not Celebrities, on the French Riviera

As it turns out, the French Riviera caters to more than a few of our favourite holiday past-times: channeling Brigitte Bardot, building sand castles at the beach and … tracking down aliens? About an hour north of the seaside city of Nice, into the mountainous terrain where Provence meets the Cote d’Azur; at the end of a…

The Eiffel Tower’s Lost Art Nouveau Restaurant

Meet us for dinner in Paris under the Iron Lady … circa 1900? Over the 135 years since the Eiffel Tower was built, there have been some surprising additions that have come and gone from the site of city’s most iconic landmark. In our archives, we’ve shared the tower’s various transformations and experimental uses, including…

What Happened to the Secret Bunker beneath the Eiffel Tower?

You may or may not be aware that Gustave Eiffel used his iconic Eiffel Tower as a personal start-up lab for scientific innovation (hint: you probably heard it from us). But did you know that there’s also a “secret” military bunker still buried beneath, with an entrance near the south pillar? The bunker — which…

The Eiffel Tower goes up for Auction!

Okay, okay so maybe Europe isn’t that financially down in the dumps that we need to start flogging our cultural icons but technically, part of the Eiffel Tower is indeed going on sale today at the famous auction house, Drouot. Every last stick of furniture including the porcelain plates, glasses, tablecloths, tables, chairs and wall…

Taking a Bath in Front of the Eiffel Tower

Paris is by far one of the easiest places to come back to after a holiday, but still, I could use something extra to beat the blues. So when the the folks at Paris Perfect suggested a staycation at one of their apartments following my vacation, I packed my just-unpacked weekend bag and embarked on a new…

We Found a California B&B that Might be Madder than the Madonna Inn

As unabashed lovers of the more-is-more mantra, we were destined to fall in love with “The Victorian Mansion at Los Alamos” – which is anything but Victorian, in a way. It can be a 1950s drive-in, or a Parisian escape; a pirate’s lair, or a gladiator’s delight. The last Victorian estate in the area, this mansion-turned-B&B…

Dinner at the Drive-Through Eiffel Tower

We’ve seen it dressed up every which way; painted yellow, used as a giant advertising billboard; and we even peered inside its hidden apartment, but we’ve never seen the Eiffel Tower looking quite like this. Ladies and gents, you’re looking at the 1936 Eiffel Tower that never was, a mock-up to turn Paris’ Iron Lady into……

Who is the Girl in the Paris Bathtub?

I took a bath in front of the Eiffel Tower once and my naked back has since gone viral on the internet. You might have noticed. People even started painting their own watercolour interpretations of this photograph and one of the Kardashian sisters recently “borrowed” it for her Instagram account. Stumbling upon my own self-portrait on…