You Can’t See the Eiffel Tower From The London Eye!
The tower you can see is a lot closer than Paris!
The number of people who have “flown” in the London Eye since it was set up as part of London’s millennium celebrations now runs into the tens of millions. They have gazed out at the view of London and its surroundings and pointed in excitement at everything they can see — Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London, Windsor Castle, the Eiffel Tower …
What was that? The Eiffel Tower? You mean the one in Paris?
That’s what they say — on a clear day, from the top of the London Eye, you can see the Eiffel Tower!
This claim is made so often that it must be true, surely? As we all know, that many American tourists can’t possibly be wrong!
Sorry, folks, but the view isn’t quite that good! Let’s just think about it for a minute. Paris is about 200 miles to the south of London. If you could see that far, then you would also be able to see 200 miles in every other direction, giving you a view of Plymouth, Bristol, Swansea, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Hull … assuming that there were no hills in the way!
But of course you can’t see that far, simply because we all live on a ball, not a plate. The curvature of the Earth comes into play, such that the view from a…