The city of love (and laissez-faire parking) has multiple tiers of attractions. The headliners are the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre, followed by the Notre Dame (or whatever is left of it), the Catacombs and the Champs Elysees. For the more adventurous there’s also the Moulin Rouge and the infamous L’Ami Louis. What most tourists never get a chance to see, however, is the scintillating view over the city from a much-maligned piece of architecture, Tour Montparnasse.
As the running joke goes, “The best place in Paris is on top of the Montparnasse tower, because you cannot see the Montparnasse tower.” Unfortunately for most of us, due to the abundance of historical and artistic sites to see, people to meet and Grand Marnier’s to drink, few of us take the time to venture up Paris’ ugliest attraction.
This oversight was yesterday pointed out by a member of Reddit’s 3.1 million user strong r/travel community, in a post which quickly started trending. The post took the form of a simple photo (see below) captioned with the following: “The view from Ciel de Paris restaurant (on top of Montparnasse tower in Paris, France) are [sic] scintillating!”
While the author of the thread admitted to tweaking the colours of the photo, as many other users pointed out, this doesn’t take away from the spot’s much neglected (relative to Paris’ more famous attractions) stunning, gun barrel views over the city of love.
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On commented, “Nice! My partner and I recently went to the restaurant on the Eiffel Tower for our anniversary, but this view definitely beats it,” while another wrote, “Beautiful. Been to Paris several times but never to the Montparnasse tower.”
“I’m going to Paris in a few weeks. Definitely gonna hit this spot now. Thank you!”
Other Reddit users backed this idea up with comments like, “Caught a sunset here as well. Would recommend 100%” and, “Seine-tillating.” Meanwhile Tripadvisor reviewers have called it, “The best view in Paris.”
As for the restaurant, the author of the thread said, “The food was delicious, but I also think we were paying for the view. A bottle of champagne comes to be a better deal than ordering a few glasses,” as well as suggesting that as people cotton onto the true value of this experience, prices could be hiked.
“They’re still working out some kinks since they reopened a few months ago under a new chef. We wanted to try it out before they reclaim their Michelin and the prices skyrocket even further.”