Towers #2of3

Towers serve a variety of purposes. Some are an inherent part of a building, many are beautiful in their own right, others are best used as a platform to look over a city, a lot are bell towers, many serve as a transmitter for TV or radio signals.

Erected in 1889 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution, in 1909 the Eiffel Tower was saved from destruction, only because it served as a radio aerial. Ascending the Tower in the elevator presents the traveler with a dilemma, a mental hassle. While this lacy work of 18,000 iron pieces held together by 2.5 million rivets is fascinating to see while traveling from level to level, you can’t see the Eiffel Tower from there.

Above Prague, Czech Republic, we have seen, but not visited, a replica, a mini-Eiffel built in 1891 for the Jubilee Exhibition, that was sponsored by the Pharmaceutical Society in Prague. The view from the tower is said to be magnificent and well worth the 299-steps to the viewing platform. Halfway up are two restaurants where you can enjoy a meal, and a perfect view of Prague.

The single spire of the Cathedral in Ulm, Germany, is the world’s tallest church steeple (528 feet), and I personally counted each of the 768 steps to the top. The last hundred or so are in a narrow circular staircase enclosed in the lacy Gothic spire — I could reach out and touch a cloud. I was in such physical condition that when I reached the top I wasn’t even breathing hard. In fact, I almost wasn’t breathing at all.

The Rathaus in Rothenburg, Germany has a tower that’s a must to climb. After a few flights of stairs there’s a traffic light that glows green or red, depending on how many travelers got there first. Several flights of narrow wooden stairs, followed by a short ladder, then a squeeze through a small door, leads onto the narrow walkway around the very tip of the copper-plated tower roof. Of course it was necessary to wiggle backwards through that door, then carefully shinny down that steep ladder, when we were ready to leave. But it’s well worth it.

The fairest tower in Italy has borne witness to six centuries of Siena’s history. Like no tower in the world, a graceful flight of fancy caught in brick and stone, Torre del Mangia soars 412 steps above the Palazzo Pubblico, in Siena’s Plaza del Campo. Information signs had been hand-printed into 65 different languages, and both the climb and the view from the top are impeccable.

We have ascended the TV towers in Munich, Stockholm, Berlin, Vienna, Hamburg, Stuttgart, and Rotterdam. Their main function is as a transmitting tower, but for us, they were a stage from where we could view the city panorama.