Today was a very exciting day as we visited the Palace of Versailles, the extravagant Palace built by Louis XIV during the 17th century. We were amazed by the opulence of room after room. One room was made simply because Louis XIV received a lovely painting and it needed to go somewhere. There are also so many rooms due to royal etiquette which meant the King, Queen and Dauphin all needed a series of rooms that lead to their bedchamber, where different people cou...

Today we went to the Eiffel Tower and unfortunately the stories of huge lines were entirely true - even when we made it through the line at the bottom we still had to queue for a long time coming up and down each level of the tower. The views were definitely great and we couldn't come to Paris without visiting it, but the Eiffel Tower definitely something of a box ticking exercise. We have also been blessed by gorgeous weather and it should continue for the rest ...

Yesteday was the day when Mum and Dad finally arrived and we surprised them by meeting them at the airport and with a bottle of champagne in their hotel room! It was great to catch up after a couple of months apart and needless to say we had a lot of stories to tell each other. After a good nights sleep for them we headed out today to explore the area near our hotel. We are staying right near the Arc de Triomphe and Champs Elysees which was a great place to star...

On Thursday 25th we arrived in Tours, our base for exploring a couple of Loire Valley châteaux. Tours itself is a lively place, with cute little medieval streets in parts with a number of beautiful churches rising out of the maze where you least expect them. Yesterday we visited the Château of Chenonceau, built originally by a rich French family, the Bohiers, but eventually taken over/seized by the French Royal family in 1547 under King Henry II. What makes i...

Clisson is a lovely town twenty minutes from Nantes by train and it definitely fits its description as "Tuscany meets France". When Brittany was separate from France, this town and it's large castle were at the frontier of Brittany's defence. The castle is largely ruins now but you can really get a good feel for the size of place at the height of it's use from the 13th century until it's destruction in the 18th century. In the 19th century François Lemot, whil...