Tuesday 7th July 2015.

It seemed that no sooner had I put my head down on the pillow, I heard the familiar tone of my iphone alarm tone which could mean only one thing... It was 4am and time to get up out of bed for what will be the first day of our extensive tour of France & Italy...a momentus journey 16 days long starting in Paris, travelling by train down to Milan, a couple of days by Lake Garda then on to Venice, followed by Rome and finally arriving in Sardinia.

On tour will be the whole family, including Josie and I and our three children Madalyn (10) Millie (16) and Alex (18 turning 19 whilst we are in Venice).

Today was to be a very long but enjoyable day.

By 5.30am we were already in Copthorne, with our pre-booked taxi waiting for us outside my Auntie Janice's house...Janice to my surprise given the unearthly hour greeted us at her door and waived us on our way. Bless her she had offered us her driveway on which to park our car for the time we are away saving us a considerable amount of money.

Gatwick beckoned and we were soon dropping off our baggage for the Easyjet flight hold (bag drop) and were immediately presented with a queue akin to the first day of a Madonna concert ticket sale...and this is supposed to be progress!

At 8am we were rolling down the runway bound for Paris! 45 minutes later we touched down and amazingly within 15 minutes of landing we were collecting our luggage from the carousel...very impressed with that Stelios or whoever it is that's running the show at Easyjet these days.

So, we were now at Paris CDG, a huge sprawling metropolis and in many ways a relic of assumed brutalist 60s concrete architecture.

I always find airports fascinating as you never know what type of airliners and airlines you will see (sounds a bit anorak doesn't it, but true all the same . Anyway this airport was no exception, in the distance was a Singapore Airlines A380 the King of the airliners, and various airliners parked on the tarmac with livery I'd not seen before. On the way out from the airport we were also treated to the sight of an Easyjet. A319 crossing a bridge we we're travelling under...marvellous.

This trip was going to involve travelling on numerous tyres of transport...the next form of transport was Easybus almost certainly the cheapest way of Travelling from CDG into Central Paris. This is a modern minibus branded in the Easyjet Bright orange. The cost was under 4€ each compared to others that were charging in the region of 17€ per person!

The bus was due to pick us up at 11am but was not there...we waited for a while a bit concerned that Easybus was not going to be very easy at all, however the bus eventually turned up and our driver a nice bloke with a thick northern British accent was driving us through the Paris traffic which can only be described as a hair-raising and slightly unnerving experience...makes driving in London seem like a dream. You could tell that this chap had done the trip several times before.

An hour or so later, and passing the impressive Stade de France stadium we arrived in Central Paris and hired two taxis to our first hotel of the trip, the Cactus Hotel located in Volantaire, not the most exclusive hotel I've ever stayed in but it was in a good location and clean...our rooms were right at the back of the hotel and up 3 flights of stairs...with no lift!

It was now time to explore Paris and make the most of the little time we had in this great City. This involved using a great number of tube trains. It was on one of these platforms we got talking to a local Parisien a nice chap in his 20s who was giving us some pointers for the tourist trail. Turned out he had studied at Durham University, and spoke very good English. He was Also proving to be an excellent tour guide and ambassador for Paris.

This chap also proved quite helpful in enabling us to buy the right tickets and to travel on the right tube as we had already got lost trying to make our way to Notre-Dame. The Paris subways look and feel very different to those we use in London and have apparently been around since the late 1800's. Many of the subway stations are now undergoing modernisation and some now feature lovely retro style1970s bucket seats brightly coloured in hues such as bright yellow, orange and green.

Our first destination of the day was Notre-Dame a beautiful (and free to enter) cathedral on a grand scale with stunning architectural features both inside and out, stain glassed windows being a particularly outstanding feature.

Notre-Dame stands right on the river Seine that runs through the heart of Paris, and we were to walk along some length of The Seine taking in the many pleasure boats and bridges along the way (including the famous bridge that has all the padlocks attached (lovers locks) that we stumbled across accidentally - these locks are soon to be removed (Autumrn 2015) and the metallic barriers will be replaced with glass due to the weight of the padlocks and the impact they are having on the structure of the bridge.

As it turned out the only problem for us was that we were unwittingly walking in the wrong direction! This resulted in a couple of extra tube trains and an unscheduled visit to Paris Austerlitz Station (which we had travelled down to Madrid from some 3 years earlier).

Our next destination in Paris was to Montmart which is a lovely little district in the north of the City and which offers panoramic views across the City of Paris, here is a modern funicular railway which we boarded, the type you can see at Hastings but much more contemporary in style.

Whilst you can see many landmarks from this view point, strangely enough, The Eiffel Tower is not one of them...this amazing landmark was to come later on in the evening... and would be worth the wait.

Time was getting on and after visiting a couple of gift shops and stopping off for a well deserved drink it was time to find somewhere to have some dinner... Earlier on the day we had pizza slices for lunch along with a drink each, costing over 40 Euros...it's true what they say, Paris IS expensive but then again so are most European cities London included.

So we had to find a place to eat that was cheap but good...and we managed to pull it off. .dinner and a drink for less than 10 Euro per person. This was in Montmart not far from the subway and a great little place, with friendly staff too.

By now it was around 7.30pm and the weather was not great, with a little rain here and there but somehow it really didn't matter and anyway we were on our way to see one of Paris's and indeed France's most well known lamdmarks and attractions...The mighty Eiffel Tower.

Wow!! This is a little like the New York experience in as much as it's one of the worlds most recognisable landmarks and something you've read about seen in books and on TV, and here it was at last standing in front of you for real in all it's awesome architectural beauty, a magnificent and elegant structure. One of my first thoughts when I'm saw the Eiffel Tower was how it puts the Blackpool Tower to shame...at 300m in height The Eiffel Tower ( or tour as it is spent in Paris dwarfs the Blackpool Tower which stands at a. 'Mere' 164 metres tall. I almost feel bad for saying that as Blackpool has always held a special place in my heart, but this structure was quite literally on another level.

Visiting the Eiffel Tower in the evening has two great advantages, the first being that the queues are much shorter. (make sure you get in the queue for the lift only), you really wouldn't want to walk up the steps unless you are mightily fit and even then you'd think twice. Our queuing time was only around 30 minutes.

The second and greatest advantage is that you get to see this structure in it's most incredible form...all lit up! A beautiful golden glow that literally shines out across the Parisian sky line.

However, before the lights were switched on it was time to get to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

The first lift is quite sizeable and I guess takes around 40 or so people. The lift moves at quite a rate and it's passengers are soon presented with an incredible vista of the Paris City landscape and architectural beauty from the air, most of which appears to be white in colour and laid out in a grid form. Plenty of landmarks can be seen including the Arc de Triumph and Trocadeo being a couple of notable examples.

I'm sure I wasn't the only lift passenger whose legs were turning to jelly as the lift climbed higher and higher to it's final destination...which was not even the very top of the tower...to reach the summit would mean getting in a second and much smaller lift...which with it's glass walls this was an even more frightening experience...I did question why we had paid 69 Euros (2 adults / 2 youths and 1 child) to go to the very summit when the experience was in many respects brilliant but terrifying. If you ever visit, be prepared for both amazing views and sights but also plenty of queuing, not that it ruins the experience but just be prepared.

Whilst we were at the summit the tower suddenly came alive when it became illuminated, and it was almost an exciting experience awaiting to see the Eiffel Tower lit up looking from the outside when we reached the ground as it was when we were looking forward to reaching the top.

We were not to be disappointed and many photographs were taken of the Eiffel Tower lit up in a beautiful golden light...at one point the lights turned to sparkling silver like a stunning Christmas tree, a true site to behold. I pity the chap that has the job of changing the lamps though who must obviously have a good head for heights!

This had been a tremendous yet tiring day and by just after 11pm and yet another subway trip we were back at The Cactus Hotel ready to put our heads down for the night... Tomorrow would be a very different day with a long trip down to Milan on a TGV (high speed train) to look forward to.