On September 23, 2023, we immersed Gustave Eiffel's descendants in the 1880s, during the construction of the Eiffel Tower. This date will mark the young history of Viality Tour.
When we launched our virtual reality guided tours of the Champ-de-Mars in July 2022, it was essential for us to have the historical aspect validated by specialists and historians. This validation would reinforce the credibility of the experience.
The last thing we wanted was for our experience to be seen as a "tourist attraction". On the contrary, the aim of this tour is to highlight history with a contemporary technology. We worked for 2? years to put this tour together. We researched the history of the Eiffel Tower, the engineer Gustave Eiffel and the 1889 Universal Exhibition.
And to judge all this work, there's nothing more obvious to us than the approval of the Eiffel family! Right from the start, we contacted theAssociation des Descendants de Gustave Eiffel. Following this initial contact, we met Myriam Larnaudie-Eiffel, President of the Association and great-great-granddaughter of Gustave Eiffel, and her daughter Mathilde at the end of August 2022 for initial discussions.
Then, more than a year after our last meeting, we were finally able to offer them the experience! On September 22, 2023, Mme Larnaudie-Eiffel succeeded in bringing together some thirty people, many of them descendants of Gustave Eiffel and members of the Association. That day, four generations of Eiffel were present!
This immersion in time is all the more important given that this year marks the centenary of the engineer's death. What a symbol!
And what a joy it was to receive compliments and warm applause from everyone. It was a great source of pride for Viality Tour to have received their approval after so much hard work.
Then we were invited to continue the day in their company. We took part in the temporary exhibition on Gustave Eiffel's Paris at the Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine. The exhibition is being held to mark the centenary of Gustave Eiffel's death. The visit was led by Florence Allorent, curator at the Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine.
Once the tour was over, we had the opportunity to take a beautiful family photo alongside the Eiffels! An incredible memory we won't soon forget!
