Paris Between the Lines

Settle into a boutique hotel in the Marais — the old Jewish quarter turned fashion district, where medieval architecture and contemporary galleries share the same cobblestoned lanes. An evening walk through Place des Vosges, the oldest planned square in Paris, where Victor Hugo once lived and the arcades glow amber under the lamps. Dinner at a neighbourhood bistro where the menu is written in chalk, the wine is natural, and the patron shakes your hand on the way out.

A private opening of a wing at the Musee d'Orsay, before the crowds arrive and the Impressionists belong to you alone. Monet's water lilies in silence. Degas' dancers without a selfie stick in sight. Afternoon at the Marche d'Aligre, where a food historian guides you through the stalls — explaining the politics of French cheese, the geography of olive oil, and why this particular boudin noir is worth crossing the city for. Dinner is earned: a tasting menu at a one-star in the 7th, where the chef trained under Ducasse.

Two options, both magnificent. Versailles: the palace that bankrupted a kingdom, with its Hall of Mirrors, its impossibly manicured gardens, and its Petit Trianon where Marie Antoinette played at being a shepherdess. Or Giverny: Monet's house and garden, where the waterlilies he painted a thousand times still bloom in the same pond, and the light through the willows is exactly as he rendered it. Either way, you return to Paris at dusk, when the city is at its most golden, and reward yourself with a glass of something at a cafe on the Ile Saint-Louis.

Begin in Montmartre before the tour buses arrive — the steep lanes, the vineyard on the hill, the view from Sacre-Coeur that reduces the entire city to a grey-and-cream quilt stitched with the silver thread of the Seine. Descend through the Pigalle, past the Moulin Rouge (smaller than you expected), and cross the river to Saint-Germain-des-Pres. Browse the bouquinistes along the Seine. Sit in the Cafe de Flore where Sartre wrote and Beauvoir argued. End at a jazz club in the 6th, where the music starts at ten and the night goes wherever it wants to go.