La Tour Eiffel

There are 650 stairs from the ground to the second floor observation deck. Only 320 to the first floor, where you can buy an elevator ticket if you're too tuckered to go for the second - but walking up the Eiffel Tower is definitely another way to experience it. Up the top the views are the same but there's a bit of a sense of achievement in plodding up yourself and you get a fuller appreciation of the feat of engineering the tower equals.

Taking the stairs as the lights begin to blink on feels like a very Parisian experience - why queue when you can just push up yourself then admire the twinkles as the lights of Paris get going and blanket the city.

Once the tower's lights have gone on you're treated to a frenetic display of crazy flickering for five minutes on the hour, which is a bit hectic to look at, and better seen from afar. From the tower you can see the tiny flashes of the cameras from the Trocadero and then when you cross to the Tokyo palace you can see the same flashes from the second level of the tower - each as useless as the light fades, just another flash of light in the city of lights.

Cheaper than the lift and with less queuing you do need to be able to drag yourself up a minimum of 320 stairs and deal with the heights and the sight of the bare bones of the tower’s structure – but don’t worry, it’s not that precarious, just a warning. And mind the flashing lights.