Today finally brings the moment I came to Paris for: to visit La Tour Eiffel. We gathered under the south foot of the Eiffel Tower to meet our guide at 10:30 am for our ascent. We had heard stories about having to wait hours to get tickets to ascend the tower so we had pre-booked a 'skip the line' tour to avoid this. How happy we were that we could just breeze in to the tower when there were thousands of people lined up for hours in the hot sun! The Eiffel To...

We spent today exploring some of city's great sites. Our first stop was the Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile. The "Triumphant Arch" was commissioned by Napeolean in 1806 after the victory at Austerlitz. It honours those who fought and died for France in the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars, with the names of all French victories and generals inscribed on its inner and outer surfaces. The Tomb of the unknown soldier from WWI is also located under the Arch...

Today we hoped on a train to visit Louis XIV's Summer Palace - Château de Versailles. After hunting trips to Versailles , Louis XIII ordered construction of a hunting lodge in 1624. This hunting lodge was expanded to one of the largest palaces in the world during Louis XIV reign and court was moved to Versailles in 1682. There were four large building campaigns between 1664 and 1710, each coinciding with funding from victory in War. This continued under the...

After a 12 hour flight we arrived at Charles de Gualle airport at 6:15 am. We were whisked through immigration and customs, and were on the RER ( Express train from the airport) within 1 hour of arriving. We travelled to Chalet Les Halles, then switched to the busy morning Metro to Pyramides where we alighted to our hotel on Rue Des Pyramides. I had no idea how accessible and efficient train travel is in Paris. We dropped our bags at Hotel Lumen and immediate...