Eiffel Tower

I have been putting off "climbing" the Eiffel Tower for a few weeks. It was partly due to the bout of cough which I was suffering but also the fact that this is the last world landmark programmed on the steps-master at the gym. After this, I will have to make up a landmark to climb... and am not sure whether I will be motivated enough.

Since I was on leave this week and had a hearty lunch with a few good friends, I decided that I had to do the inevitable - and today seemed like a good day as any. The Eiffel Tower has 2,731 steps to the top - and I did it today, Alhamdulillah. I warmed up with a 2.4km run on the treadmill followed by a 13km dash on the bicycle. By the end of the climb, I lost many hundred calories and was perspiring like it was raining - but my faithful iPod nano was my driving force and motivation all along. As I am still on leave tomorrow and my trainer is all the way in Aberdeen, Scotland for the week, I will need to find new motivation for tomorrow's session. I am sure I will find something :)

From wikipedia:
The Eiffel Tower is an iron tower built on the Champ de Mars beside the Seine River in Paris. Named after its designer, engineer Gustave Eiffel, the Eiffel Tower is the tallest building in Paris and one of the most recognized structures in the world. It has become a global icon of France. More than 200,000,000 have visited the tower since its construction in 1889, including 6,719,200 in 2006 alone, making it the most visited paid monument in the world. Including the 24 m antenna, the structure is 325 m high (since 2000), which is equivalent to about 81 levels in a conventional building.

When the tower was completed in 1889 it was the world's tallest tower — a title it retained until 1930 when New York City's Chrysler Building (319 m) was completed. The tower is now the fifth-tallest structure in France and the tallest structure in Paris, with the second-tallest being the Tour Montparnasse (210 m), although that will soon be surpassed by Tour AXA (225.11 m).

The structure was built between 1887 and 1889 as the entrance arch for the Exposition Universelle, a World's Fair marking the centennial celebration of the French Revolution. Eiffel originally planned to build the tower in Barcelona, for the Universal Exposition of 1888, but those responsible at the Barcelona city hall thought it was a strange and expensive construction, which did not fit into the design of the city. After the refusal of the Consistory of Barcelona, Eiffel submitted his draft to those responsible for the Universal Exhibition in Paris, where he would build his tower a year later, in 1889. The tower was inaugurated on March 31, 1889, and opened on 6 May. Three hundred workers joined together 18,038 pieces of puddled iron (a very pure form of structural iron), using two and a half million rivets, in a structural design by Maurice Koechlin. The risk of accident was great, for unlike modern skyscrapers the tower is an open frame without any intermediate floors except the two platforms. However, because Eiffel took safety precautions, including the use of movable stagings, guard-rails and screens, only one man died.

The tower was met with much criticism from the public when it was built, with many calling it an eyesore. (Novelist Guy de Maupassant — who claimed to hate the tower — supposedly ate lunch in the Tower's restaurant every day. When asked why, he answered that it was the one place in Paris where you couldn't see the Tower.) Today, it is widely considered to be a striking piece of structural art.

Upon the Nazi occupation of Paris in 1940, the lift cables were cut by the French so that Adolf Hitler would have to climb the steps to the summit. The parts to repair them were allegedly impossible to obtain because of the war. In 1940 Nazi soldiers had to climb to the top to hoist the swastika, but the flag was so large it blew away just a few hours later, and it was replaced by a smaller one. When visiting Paris, Hitler chose to stay on the ground. It was said that Hitler conquered France, but did not conquer the Eiffel Tower. A Frenchman scaled the tower during the German occupation to hang the French flag. In August 1944, when the Allies were nearing Paris, Hitler ordered General Dietrich von Choltitz, the military governor of Paris, to demolish the tower along with the rest of the city. Von Choltitz disobeyed the order. The lifts of the Tower were working normally within hours of the Liberation of Paris.