You can go up the Eiffel Tower using the lifts but you can also choose the stairs if you really want to explore the tower from every angle and enjoy a walk which really is quite unlike anything else. That 674-step exercise will cost you about €4. But, what you’ll say whan hear that a portion of the original stairs from Paris’s iconic Eiffel Tower have sold for €523,800 ($556,000).
The 14 wrought-iron steps from a winding staircase between the second and third floors of the Paris landmark found its buyer after furious bidding at the sale in the French capital.
Auction house Artcurial said the dramatic sale on Tuesday had “unleashed the passions” of several international buyers, with bids rising rapidly from €20,000, leaving the €40,000 estimate far behind.
The prize eventually fell to a telephone bid from an Asian buyer.
The stairs date back to 1889, when Gustave Eiffel first built the 1,063-foot structure as the centerpiece for the 1889 World Fair. The Tower soon became an icon of the City of Light, and stands today as a globally recognized landmark on the city’s skyline. It is still the country’s third tallest structure, and was the highest building in the world for 41 years until the construction of the Chrysler Building in New York in 1930.