The Tour Montparnasse

After another long walk across Paris I made it to the Tour Montparnasse. The tower itself was named after the neighborhood it stands in, which was named after Mount Parnassus, the home of the nine Greek muses. As the name suggests, the neighborhood is quite artsy, and was a famous hang out of Victor Hugo, Pablo Picasso, and Ernest Hemmingway. My goal was to get to the top of this 210 meter building and take some killer photos of Paris. After a bit of waiting, some Spanish translation for a bus load of confused tourists, and a lot of trying to figure out where the tourist doors were, I made it to the elevator. Since this is the tallest building I've ever been to the top of, I was quite surprised to feel my ears pop as I made the 38 second ascent to floor number 56. Floors 0 through 55 are offices, floor 56 is the tourist observation deck, floor 57 is a restaraunt, floor 58 is strictly mechanical (elevators, window washers) and floor 59, is used to get to the roof. It was a really neat building, and worth the six €s (they gave me the group rate for being part of the Spanish tour bus, I didn't try to explain) to get to the top. They post how high you are as you climb the stairs from floor 56 to the roof.