It’s not really a case of what to see in Paris, it’s more how to see it.

I always thought that the Eiffel Tower was rather tacky, until the first time I saw it and I fell in love with it.

It took me much longer to figure out the perfect way to see it though!  It’s not really convenient from most metro stations, so a bus is usually better, but even better is... the Batobus.

Batobus is a great hop on hop off bus/boat.  If you start, as we did, at Notre Dame the trip starts slowly as you head to the Jardin des Plantes before heading round and seeing most of the major sights from the river.

It’s a great way to travel with children (well anyone!) as they can choose what they’re interested in, and in our case they were much more interested in the Paris Plages than the ancient buildings!

The only things you miss on the Batobus are the courtyards of the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe and the Sacre Coeur - but you can sit back and relax while soaking up the ambience of Paris as well as enjoying the bridges close up.

When you arrive at the Eiffel Tower, especially mid summer, it’s noisy, crowded and full of hawkers.  And for me it’s also time to forget about actually going up it.  (If you want to go up, go early and prepare to queue!)  It’s certainly interesting to go up the diagonal lifts but for me I prefer to enjoy it from the bottom!

If you want to enjoy the Eiffel Tower my advice is to find the pond just slightly to the side of the tower, go around it and you’ll find yourself in a little spot (not really a park, although it has a couple of benches) where if you’re lucky you’ll be the only people, giving you the perfect chance to enjoy the view without someone running off with your handbag or your kids!

But, like most of Paris, you need to see it twice - once by day and once by night (I’d actually even go so far as to say you also need to see Paris in each season - particularly at Christmas time when it really becomes the City of Light).

Unfortunately, in July night has a tendency to fall pretty late in Paris and I wasn’t keen on taking the girls out, especially to the crowded Eiffel Tower so late.  Also the Batobus stops running at 9.30pm.

As I was a bit shattered by 9pm, we headed back to the hotel, where we realised that we could see the top of the Eiffel Tower from the Pantheon.  So we decided to go in and chill out for an hour and then come out to look at the night view.

So, just after 10pm we ventured back out, and the girls were blown away by just the top of the Eiffel Tower lit up.  Which is when I had my brilliant idea.  We jumped in a cab and asked the driver to give us a tour of Paris.  I have to say our driver was fab - he told me to forget about my original plan to hit the Louvre as a lot of roads were closed, and took us straight up to the Eiffel Tower.  Where we jumped out, ran to the front of it, all holding hands, took a few photos and then jumped back in the cab.  Then he told us that the Tower starts sparkling at exactly 11pm in the summer months (it’s on the hour after nightfall so varies with the sunset), so whipped us up to the Trocadero so we could see the Tower burst into light.  Wow!  Really this was the highlight of our trip.

After this he took us around the Arc de Triomphe and some of the big monuments, finally passing the gloriously lit pyramids and then home, just before the girls fell asleep.  At about €36 (€40 with tip) it was worth every penny!

P.S. Did you know that Gustave Eiffel also created the inner framework for another major icon - The Statue of Liberty!?