Summer Holiday - Paris

Whenever you mention driving into Paris the first thing people say is "your not insured when driving around the Arc De Triomphe . So heading into town I was a little nervous. Thankfully the route was pretty straight forward and I didn't have to deal with 8 lanes of Crazy French drivers.

Once we got settle I took the bikes off the rack and we went for a ride in the Bois De Boulogne park next to the camp-site  My idea was to do a reckie mission onto the other side of the park near the centre of Paris. We headed off in a random direction, being under the trees meant that we couldn't see the city, by luck rather than management we found or way across the park, crossing several busy roads on our adventure, also skirting around the lac Inférieur.  We stopped at an artificial waterfall for a break, had a coffee and then to my amusement rode past a photographer in the middle of a pornography shoot!! we zoomed past on our bikes and the kids didn't notice the young girl spread eagled on a tree stump!

Back at the camp-site we had takeaway pizza before heading for bed. Early up and into Paris using the bus from the camp-site  it dropped us off at Porte Maillot, from here we headed to the Arc De Triomphe  We used the underpass to get into the middle it would be impossible to walk across the road! The queue for ticket was pretty short so we soon were heading up the spiral staircase, through the innards of the monument and out onto the top. The views were pretty impressive and we spent quite a long time walking around looking at the famous monuments that are known the world over.

We headed back down and walked along the Champs Elysees the kids looked for all the posh car showrooms that were everywhere, Andrea spent time looking in the perfume shops. I was happy to admire the views. After lunch at McDonalds we continued onto the Louvre, it was pretty hot, the kids got ice cream and we headed for the shade.

From here we headed down onto the Seine crossing on the Pont des Arts bridge, covered in padlocks, Andrea and the kids got scammed by a bloke making friendship bands, they were very expensive!

Next we headed to Notre Dame, to be honest the cathedral at Amiens was more impressive. The kids were sick of walking so we got me Metro back to Porte Maillot. This was the highlight of the day for Jack and Finlay, typical kids. We soon found the bus stop and headed back to the camp-site.

After tea me and Finlay went for a bike ride and found a cool waterfall opposite the Longchamp racecourse in the park. This was Finlay favourite place is Paris.He loved running around, under, behind and over the waterfall. For something so simple it kept Finlay entertained for ages.

Our second day in Paris started by our pre booked visit to the Eiffel Tower both kids were Unsure about how high it was, they thought it was unsafe! The pre booked tickets worked well and queuing for the first lift took only a few minutes. When we got out of the lift on the second floor it was petty busy.We took some photos and admired the . already impressive view, it was a really nice day, perfect for taking photos.

Queuing for the lift to the top was a bit of a bun fight, it was very busy. The ride to the top was pretty amazing and you really got the feeling of how high the tower is. The lift stops on an interior room, steps then take you to the outside observation walkways. It was well worth the effort, even the kids got into everything and their initial fear disappeared  On the way down we used the steps between the 2nd and - 1st floors, Jack really didn't like this, he felt very unsafe.

Back at ground level we had some lunch at a nearby cafe then headed to the Seine for a river trip on one of the many tourist boat trips. We sat back and enjoyed listening to the on board commentary. The bot went a all the way to Notre Dame and bouts again, lots more photos.

We headed for the tube station and ended up waiting for ages, cancelled trains! However me were soon back at the camp-site.

I started preparing for our journey over to the west coast, nearly 300 miles. Tomorrow was going to be a long day.