Day 5 - we started the day well having no problems catching the train the Bordeaux. Then the fun started after we picked up the hire car! I was starting to panic when the sat nav couldn't locate the satellites but fortunately it did finally. Driving on the right wasn't so bad but navigating through the maze of streets in Central Bordeaux was a nightmare! The sat nav had to recalculate several times and the girls counted that I was beeped at 4 times and swore 6! I...

Day 4 in Paris - first stop was the Arc de Triumph. Was crazy watching the driving - there are no lanes and people cross over each other without any crashes! We then walked down the Champs Élysées. All the sales are on at the moment so we had to buy something - don't look at the credit card bill John! We then wandered through the gardens to the louvre and saw the famous Mona Lisa. Was such a crowd there that I had to send Hayley in! Mum has been doing great wi...

Day 3 - disastrous start to the day when our expensive one day tour of Paris failed to pick us up! Turned out the agent hadn't told the tour company where to pick us up and we missed the first hour of the tour. After they picked us up we went to Notre Dame. Sunday mass was on so mum got her church service she wanted to go to. The girls were overwhelmed with the size of it. Hayley didn't like the gloominess! Then it was off to Sacre Coeur and Montmatre. Another Su...

Day 2 in Paris. We succeeded in our two missions today - Ice cream and shopping! Found an amazing shopping mall in an amazing building - will put a photo up. Also got to Notre Dame. Biggest problem was finding our hotel again - right train station but different line which came out in a different place. Got there in the end !

We can't believe we are in Paris now! We had to take the train from the airport and whoever said French people were rude and unhelpful was wrong! A lovely young man practically escorted us to our destination through Gare du Nord which is one of the main train stations and was incredibly busy! Lots of people helped us with our cases up and down steps too! I think mum was wishing we had just got a taxi from the airport! We are now settled into the Novetel and had ...