Day 21 - It's hard to believe that we have been away 3 weeks already. Today our earlier start than usual was fine and sunny. We managed to find our way to Kings Cross station and on to St Pancras (the international train station for the UK) for our connection to Paris. A fast 2hrs30 minutes trip (25 minutes of it under the English Channel) and we arrived in Gare du Nord station in Paris. A very busy station with international and local trains at the one terminal. It was back on their busy tube for two more train rides before finding the Hotel Choiseul Opera, our home for the next 3 nights. We headed down town for a 4pm lunch then off on our pre-booked evening Paris tour. A short bus trip and we were on a 90 minute Seine River cruise. We had about 400 people on our boat for a cruise that took us under many of the 23 very old (some around 600 years) bridges that cross the Seine. Back on land it was a short walk to the Eifel Tower and a short elevator ride up to a very crowded 2nd level. This was a spectacular view of the city. There are very few high rise buildings in Paris, mostly 3 to 5 storey stone structures, many with a lot of history to tell. Our waiting time to get to the 2nd level was minimal because it was a prebooked tour group, but if you wanted to go to the very top of the tower it was at least another hour's wait on level 2. We only had about 30 minutes on our level, then back on the bus (a panoramic double decker) for a 1 hour city lights tour. It was just starting to go dark as we boarded around 10pm. This covered many of the famous buildings, monuments and bridges with good commentary through personal earphones. A good tour, but we plan to go back in the next couple of days and see some of the sights close up. A coffee at McDonalds around 11.30 saw the end of our first day in Paris.