LI A long and scenic train ride on Wednesday 18th took us along the French Riviera with postcard views of hundreds of terracotta rooves in front of turquoise seas. Absolutely beautiful, in fact we picked out a couple of houses for each of us if we ever happen to win lotto. After this we arrived in Nice to some more fantastically blue skies and warm temperatures. Ahhh, feels like home. We found our hostel which is conveniently located near the train station and ...

LI After another train trip we arrived in Carcassonne to blue skies. We soon discovered that, unlike Paris, very few people could speak English and so it was an interesting hunt for transport to our out-of-town hotel (note the lack of an "s" in that word - HOTEL, albeit a budget one). The helpful ladies at the tourism office directed us to the right bus and soon enough we had dumped our bags and were headed back in time to the medieval fortress city. T...

PAUL In Lyon we negotiated yet another metro train system and then climbed a monster hill (with backpacks) to find our hostel overlooking the city. The next morning we started our journey through Lyon with a visit to the Basilica at the top of the hill (with the help of the cable car) and then went on to see the roman amphitheatres, which have been restored in parts for use today. Then journeying back down the hill we made our way through the old and new parts ...

PAUL Heading south from Paris (on 15 June), our first stop for the day was Dijon (that of the famous mustard no less). Being Sunday in Europe, and another rainy day, there were few people around when we walked out of the train station. With the tourist office closed, we embarked on our own tour of the town and soon found the very useful little owl arrows on the pavement (although it did try to take us through a construction site at one stage). We also climbed to...

PAUL AND LI We arrived in Paris around 5:30pm (June 10) from Brussels. With our hostess not home until 11pm that night we had some time to kill before heading over there. After storing our bags at the station and managing to book our next few train trips, we went off to find the Basilique du Sacre-Cœur and, after walking up the stairs, discovered that it really does sit on the highest point in Paris! At the top, we went into the Basilica and then sat in front o...