Dear Mimi,
Sorry I have not been around as I noticed that there were very few postings about F&E to France and have also gotten a bit fatigued about it; let the masses go with the tour agencies (especially now that the overhyped NATAS fair is on!) to leave the roads and other lesser known tourist destinations free for us F&E enthusiasts.
Also after seeing postings from forummers like:
"hi we planning to NZ for HM in Dec too.. planning to self drive.. any idea if we need to convert our driving license since NZ is left-hand drive?" (Since when is NZ left-hand drive? You drive on the left side of the road yes, but that is not the same as left-hand drive. Sheesh.)
and
" im planning to go NZ gor HM..can i check when is the best month to go? if im gg to south NZ probably on jan..isit winter month over there..=)" (Oh my, winter in NZ in Jan? That's new to me!)
the lack of general knowledge is bad enough, but not wanting to spend one minute finding the answer through Google is worse. Sigh.
Firstly you don't tour Swiss; just as you don't tour French; you tour France, so you tour Switzerland. It's just a small thing and I'm not picking on you (everyone else who is guilty raise their hands.... ah I see so many
), but I see it so common in this forum and it is quite shockingly unacceptable.
Ok rant over, now to the real thing.
One of the first places you should go is to get a guide book; buy one or borrow one from the library. We cannot possibly tell you everything you'd need to know; furthermore we do not know your preferences so we do not know what to recommend, at best we can come up with poor recommendations; at worse we waste your time and money visiting attractions you have absolutely no interest in.
Five nights in Paris is good for first timers; see my reply above to BB. I highly suggest you book your hotel and travel as soon as you can; as a first timer, you don't want to be stranded with no place to sleep and no seat on the train.
If you have further questions, do post them here.