An icon of Paris and an icon of France, the Eiffel Tower, or “Iron Lady” as it is affectionately known, rises 324 meters above the city of light. A vertiginous emblem of the Industrial Revolution right in the heart of Paris and cornerstone of the Universal Exhibition of 1889, the Eiffel Tower just keeps getting younger, scarcely betraying its true age. Bathed in a golden light at nightfall (since 1985), the tower sparkles for five minutes at the start of every hour. Once again, this feature was intended to be a temporary one to mark the transition to the year 2000 but it remains in place to this day. With its gracious and vertiginous fragile silhouette, the Eiffel Tower was only ever intended as an ephemeral landmark when it was built by Gustave Eiffel, in 1889.