Paris, France

The long road from Bordeaux took in glorious sunshine, torrential downpours, towering rainbows and buffeting side winds in an endless rotation of weather conditions but eventually I arrived and pitched up just outside of the eastern edge of the city at Camping Club Le Parc De Paris - a nice enough campsite but run by pretty useless staff.

Now Paris is a city of too much stuff to even comprehend covering in the three days that I spent there. Here, the creamy filling of art, culture, architecture and general city goings-on are so crammed in that they are oozing out the sides. It didn't stop me making the most of my time in the French capital though as I made my final stop before heading back to dear old Blighty.

Of course any trip here isn't complete without the Eiffel Tower despite it's endless queue of visitors. My plan was to get to the Tower in the early evening just before it got dark so that I could get a great view of the city as the light began to fade - something I highly recommend doing as the views are fantastic.

Next stop was the Paris Catacombs which is normally overlooked by tourists as it is effectively a long underground tunnel below the city streets. The excavation started out as a 18th century quarry but soon became the resting place for over 6 million Parisians whose bones are neatly stacked up on both sides from floor to ceiling for around 800m of the tunnel. There are also a few sculptures of various towns and fortresses carved into the walls along the way round by talented miners.

The number of museums and galleries in the city seems to be endless and having visited the likes of the Louvre and Musee D'Orsay on previous trips to Paris, I decided to take in the Rodin Museum and the Espace Dali. Between them, they hold the sculptural masterpieces of Rodin's "The Thinker" and "The Kiss" as well as a lot of early sketches and sculptural work by Salvador Dali including his spindly-legged "Space Elephants" and, of course, numerous melting clocks.

Not far from the central Pantheon (a huge Basilica with a big pendulum in the middle) is the Luxembourg Garden, the green heart of Paris. Although it is understandably a bit bare at this time of the year, it is a thriving public space in the summer months. A little bit west of here is the Hotel Des Invalides, a sanctuary for war veterans which was attacked by protesters and sparked the start of the French Revolution.

Slap bang in the city centre on the River Seine in the famous Notre Dame Cathedral. Even in the evening, when I hoped to avoid the crowds, it was still bustling with tourists. Similarly popular but for less obvious reasons is the Basilique Du Sacre Coeur, way up in the north of the city.

One thing I was looking forward to in Paris was the Pere Lachaise Cemetery, seemingly a "who's who" of famous departed Parisians with dozens of artists, aristocrats and academics. The star attraction is probably the huge obelisk tomb of Oscar Wilde. His stone used to be covered with lipstick marks but now a glass shield takes the brunt of the kisses thanks to the disapproval of his family. Another grave worth the visit, particularly for me, is that of legendary Doors frontman Jim Morrison, whose headstone is adorned with fan-mail and flowers.

Oscar Wilde

Jim Morrison

Composer Frederic Chopin

Have already met up with Pippa (sister to my best friend Tom who came out to travel with me earlier in the year) a couple of times, we decided to go out and celebrate the end of her exams and my final night of travelling.

After a colossal meal with her flatmate Liga in the smallest and most crowded restaurant I think I have ever been in, we decided on two words which have regularly guaranteed me a great night out throughout Europe - "Jazz Club". It was a fun night of Mojitos and dancing with the older generations which made for another cracking evening and rounded off my time in Paris perfectly.

The next day was hit by the sudden realisation that I was finally on my way home for Christmas and I boarded my midnight ferry back to England and made sure I remembered to drive on the left-hand side again.

It was the small hours before I was home again with a mixture to happiness to see family and friends once again over the festive period and that sinking feeling that my travels, for now, are over.

Home at last

Bordeaux, France

Driving to Bordeaux, it suddenly began to sink in that it this was my penultimate stop before returning home and, having driven through France three times already, I was stopping for the first time for a good look around in Bordeaux. My campsite in the city was Camping Village Du Lac and I got on my bike and rode into the centre, pleased to have well respected cycle lanes once again.

As for the city itself, it is a basically a huge UNESCO listed world heritage site but it didn't strike me as anything that interesting - just a few nice stone buildings, grimy pedestrianised streets and neo-classical architecture sitting on the bank of a vast brown river. There are also numerous little towers which are now overgrown by their surroundings and squashed into narrow alleys which are way too small for them.

The skyline of the city is punctuated with several of these gothic towers - the biggest being the belfry next to the huge Cathedral of St Andre. There seem to be several other big churches and towers though which look like they could almost fit inside each other like Russian Dolls.

Bordeaux is also home to the CAPC Contemporary Art Museum. The building, a former warehouse, now houses a range of modern art currently including a few fabric sandbag forts and a class of children's drawings from the turn of the millennium in Kosovo which mainly feature tanks, blood, buildings on fire, or dismembered bodies - a strong reminder of the influence of the war there.

Right by the art museum is the Jardin Public, a big public garden with one of the river's small tributaries winding through it and surrounded by vast expanses of grass which must be a great escape in the summer months and a prime barbecue space. The neighbouring Girondins water feature/monument is another big landmark and a perfect reference point for navigating the city.

Well to be honest, Bordeaux was actually a little disappointing, grey and monotonous for the most part but now I am off to Paris which I know is anything but.