We don't normally go on holiday in February, but this year we had something exciting planned: a trip to Paris with Tim's niece Mia and sister Lucy. We booked tickets for the Eurostar from London St Pancras to Paris on Friday morning, but given the state of UK trains recently we decided it would be best to hedge our bets and travel down to London the day before, giving us enough time to make alternative arrangements if a last minute train strike was announced.

Happily, no train strikes were announced and so on Thursday morning we all had a problem-free train journey from Nuneaton down to London. Unfortunately, when we got to London, we found that it was rather damp. From Euston we took a tube to Green Park and emerged to a view of Buckingham Palace in the pouring rain. It was so wet that I didn't even take my phone out for a photo.

We persevered regardless and got some lovely views of the spring flowers as we walked past St James's Park.

It was still a bit wet when we made it to Big Ben.

We saw the House of Parliament, plus found the statue of Churchill in Parliament Square.

From there we walked up towards Trafalgar Square.

We got a rather damp view of the lions there.

After that we headed to a nearby Prezzo and sheltered from the rain while we got some food.

We spent the night at a Premier Inn just across the road from St Pancras.  That meant we didn't have a very long walk the next morning to get our train   We were booked on the 09.31 to Paris so we got to the station for just after 8am to make sure we had plenty of time to get through the security checks and passport control. Security isn't quite as stringent for the Eurostar as it is for flights, so there are no restrictions over the quantities of liquids you can take through and you don't have to remove laptops from your bags. The queue still moved quite slowly though, so it was good that we'd got there with plenty of time to spare. Once we'd got through security we had to go through UK passport control followed by French passport control. Then we just had to wait for the platform for our train to be announced

The train departed promptly at 09.31 and we were on our way, passing through the outskirts of London and down through Kent. The journey through the Channel Tunnel itself only took 20 minutes or so, then there was another hour or so to go before we reached Paris itself. The train arrived at the enormous Gare du Nord just before 1pm.

From Gare du Nord we walked down wide boulevards, passing a beautiful church on the way.

We were soon in the central shopping area, where we stopped in a branch of my favourite restaurant, Hippo.

I had an amazing steak, followed by a chocolate mousse.

After lunch we had a walk of another kilometre or so before we reached one of Paris's most famous sights.

The weather had brightened up by this point so it was almost sunny

From there we got onto the metro and travelled a stop down the line to La Défense, Paris's business district. We found a slightly strange statue of a thumb!

The apartment we're staying in was just a short walk away from here. We had some teething problems getting in, but eventually Tim got hold of the person with the key and we were able to settle down and enjoy the rest of the evening  Tomorrow should be an exciting day, as we're going to the top of the Eiffel Tower!

When we woke up in Paris  this morning we found that, unfortunately, the weather was still rather wet.

The forecast didn't give us much hope that it was going to improve as the day progressed, so we were just going to have to make the best of it. Luckily we had something exciting planned for today; going to the top of the Eiffel Tower!

That was something which none of us had ever done before. Tim and I had bought a ticket for the Eiffel Tower stairs the first time we'd come to Paris in 2010, but we'd only made it as far as the first level (which was about 300 steps). This time we'd pre-booked tickets which would allow us to travel to the top via the lifts, something which sounded like it should be a less strenuous experience

Our lift slot was booked for midday, but we needed to be there around 20 minutes in advance. First of all we had to queue up to pass through a security check that would allow us to enter the esplanade area below the Eiffel Tower. Then we had to join a second queue for the lift, where there was a further security check. We had to wait quite a long time for the second security check; there seemed to be a problem with the conveyor belt through the scanner and some people's bags had got stuck   We were more or less standing under the tower while we waited.

Eventually we were able to board the first lift, which took us up inside one of the legs of the tower, as far as the second level. At the second level, we transferred to a different lift which took us all the way to the top. And from the top we had some amazing views of Paris!

We could see down to the Arc de Triomphe, which we'd walked past this morning on our way to the tower.

We could see the river Seine, which looked rather murky today!

We could see this enormous palace and, in the distance behind it, the tall towers of the financial district, not far from where our apartment is.

Even though the weather meant it wasn't a very clear day, we could see for miles.

It definitely gave us an impression of how huge Paris is.

Once we'd finished admiring the views from the top, we took the lift back down to the second level. There was a nice area to walk around here too and because we were lower down, we could actually see some of the views more clearly.

On a hill in the far distance we could just about make out the church at Montmartre, which we might be able to fit into our itinerary tomorrow if the weather dries up a bit.

We were starting to get hungry by this point, so we took the final lift down to ground level and walked out through the gardens at the bottom of the tower.

We walked along by the river for a while, with views back towards the tower.

We passed an Orthodox church, which we'd caught sight of from above.

It took us a while to track down somewhere to eat, because we were in quite an expensive part of Paris. The worst we saw as we inspected menus was a cafe on the Champs-Élysées which was advertising an onion soup starter for €34   Trying to avoid prices like that, we eventually navigated our way to another branch of the Hippo chain of restaurants which we ate at yesterday. I ended up having the exact same meal as yesterday, in fact, complete with this ravioli starter which was absolutely delicious

It was still raining torrentially by the time we'd finished lunch, so we decided to travel back to the apartment and dry out!

When we woke up in Paris this morning we found that - for a change - it wasn't actually raining! We still had a few hours to explore before catching the Eurostar back to London in the afternoon, so we checked out of the apartment and made our way back into the city centre. After breakfast at a cafe near the Arc de Triomphe, we began walking down the Champs-Élysées.

We had originally been planning to do this walk yesterday afternoon, but changed our minds when it was raining so much. Sunday morning actually turned out to be a good time for it; most of the shops were closed and so everywhere was much less busy than it had been yesterday.

We passed the Grand Palais...

...and arrived in the Place de la Concorde, the city's main square.

In the middle of the square is the Luxor Obelisk, transported to France from Egypt in the 1830s.

The buildings surrounding the squares are very grand.

From here we didn't have far to walk to get to the Tuileries Garden.

This was fairly quiet on a Sunday morning too; just a few people out jogging.

We even found a duck!

As we walked further through the gardens we were able to turn around and get a view back towards the Eiffel Tower.

And if you look carefully at this photo below, you should be able to see not just the obelisk in Place de la Concorde, but also the Arc de Triomphe behind it and the tall towers of the business district where we'd been staying behind that.

Soon we'd reached the Louvre museum, complete with its distinctive pyramid.

Round the corner from there we had a view of the river Seine and, in the distance, the towers of Notre Dame.

After that we jumped on the metro and travelled to the suburb of Montmartre, which is home to the Sacré-Cœur Basilica. I think we must have arrived at a different metro station to the one we used last time we were in Paris. First of all we had to climb 181 steps just to exit the station. Then when we finally made it to the surface, we couldn't actually see the famous church anywhere. It took quite a bit of walking uphill followed by some steep staircases before we eventually got this view.

It was incredibly busy in Montmartre -  by far the busiest place we've been in Paris this weekend - so we didn't linger long. We found a restaurant that wasn't too expensive to get lunch, then began the walk (thankfully downhill this time!) towards Gare du Nord, from where we'd be catching our train back to London.

On the way we got a glimpse of the basilica from a distance: this was definitely the more scenic way we'd approached it on previous trips to Paris!

Never mind. It was an easy walk back to Gare du Nord and the journey back to London all went very smoothly, with the Eurostar running exactly to schedule. The weather may not have been perfect this weekend but we've made the best of it and managed to pack in a lot regardless