Paris and Switzerland Romantic Discovery Tour Package

Evening: Yours. The Seine banks are UNESCO listed and lit after dark, and walking them costs nothing.

Morning: Trocadero first, for the photograph everyone comes home with - the full 330 metres across the river with nothing in the way.

The tower: Lift to the summit, included. It was built for the 1889 World's Fair and meant to stand twenty years; the city kept it because the aerials on top turned out to be useful. The second level has the better view of Paris, the summit has the better feeling.

Afternoon: An hour on the Seine, included. The boat passes Notre-Dame, the Louvre, the Musee d'Orsay and Pont Alexandre III, which is the most ornate of the thirty-seven bridges in the city.

Evening: Yours. Montmartre's side streets are where to eat tonight rather than the square itself, which is priced for the view.

Morning: The Louvre, included. It was a royal palace for six hundred years before it was a museum, and the glass pyramid in the courtyard went up in 1989. Pick three or four things and walk out; nobody has ever finished it.

Midday: Out through the Tuileries gardens, over the river to the Ile de la Cite, and round Notre-Dame. The cathedral is free to enter and the queue moves faster than it looks.

Late afternoon: Montmartre, the 130-metre hill that is the highest point in Paris. Sacre-Coeur is free to go into, the steps in front of it are where the city watches the sun go down, and Place du Tertre behind it is still full of painters.

Evening: The lakefront promenade, with Pilatus on one side of the water and Rigi on the other. Free, flat and about as good as a first evening in Switzerland gets.

Morning: Gare de Lyon to Basel on a direct TGV Lyria, a little over three hours at up to 320 km/h. Six run a day, so there is a comfortable one whatever time you want to leave.

Basel: The platform where France ends and Switzerland begins is inside the same station. One change, about twenty minutes, and the train for Lucerne is usually across the platform.

Afternoon: An hour on to Lucerne. The station opens straight onto the lake, and the old town is across the bridge. Check in for three nights.

Evening: Yours. The old town cellars are a five-minute walk and no dinner is included on any night of this package.

Morning: Chapel Bridge, built in 1333 and the oldest covered wooden bridge in Europe, with the octagonal Water Tower set into it. Free, two minutes from the station, and emptiest before nine.

Midday: The Lion Monument, cut into the rock in 1821. Mark Twain called it the saddest piece of stone in the world. Then the Musegg Wall, where four of the nine medieval towers are open to climb with no ticket.

Afternoon: A cruise on Lake Lucerne, included. The lake has four arms and mountains on all of them, and the older boats on this route are paddle steamers with their engines open to view.

Morning: Forty-five minutes by train to Engelberg, a monastery village at the head of its valley, then the cable cars up. The whole climb is included.

The Rotair: The last stage is the world's first revolving cable car, opened in 1992. The floor turns through a full circle during the five-minute ride, so both of you see everything without moving.

At the top: The Cliff Walk, a hundred-metre suspension bridge at 3,041m and the highest in Europe, and the glacier cave cut 150 metres into the ice below the surface. Both are part of the ticket.

Afternoon: Back down whenever you like. Engelberg itself is worth half an hour before the train - the Benedictine monastery has been there since 1120 and the valley floor is flat and quiet.