We popped into Paris for the morning. After a very early start (03:34 rather than 04:45 as I think I cited in my last blog) we arrived, dazed and confused at the ferry port that’s snuggled beneath the white cliffs of Dover.

An hour and a bit later, we were in Calais. As well as driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road, France was a totally different world to the perpetually crowded roads of Blighty. Cruise control is a bit of a novelty item a lot of the time in England, as it’s so bumper to bumper that you’re constantly correcting and checking distance and speed (or not, as the case was for the 4 prangs we saw on the way down the A1 / M25 yesterday)

Aside from getting my head around the right hand side thing, the roads themselves were straight forward extreme – certainly the bits we saw. Cruising on the motorways was a dream. The A1 toll road to Paris from Calias was one of the easiest ‘long’ drives I’ve ever done. It took a while to get my head around the signs and the symbology of it all – a top tip would be research before hand (note to self).

Even getting into Paris was a breeze – nothing like getting into the cramped British big city counterparts. Our detonation was the Eiffel Tower – but we took in a few other sights on the way. All very easy to navigate and drive.

The only problem was parking. We couldn’t fit (due to clearance of 1.9m clearance in inner city car parks (we are 2.3m with the roof box)) and everywhere else that was free stating PAYANT on all the parking bays. Paris lost out there. We would have happily paid double figures to park but couldn’t becase PAYANT means resident pre paid parking and the ‘tourist’ parking meant no roof box friendly. Anyway. We nipped into a few places and had looked around. The best bet for us for future reference would have been to park way out of town and get the metro. Never mind though, we had a blast and saw a bunch of stuff.

We’ve now settled into our lodge – more on that later. It’s lovely though. Right – very tired Sophie needs putting to bed! ttfn.