Rachel Hore: What to do in Paris for a day

I’ve visited Paris a number of times as a tourist and no longer feel the need to dash around, greedily ticking the main sights off a list. In my novel A Week in Paris, the heroine, Fay, is first taken around the city on a school trip as a teenager in the 1950s and later revisits it in her 20s. 

Paris is a wonderful place in which to waste time, strolling under the chestnut trees by the river, lingering on the bridges to wave at the tourists in the bateaux-mouches gliding underneath. I recently visited the city with my student son and we had a great time people-watching from pavement cafés.

Here is my perfect sunny day in Paris... 
Buy A Week in Paris

Like this? You'll love...
A Week In Paris by Rachel Hore review
5 best cities for Winter breaks
More travel from GH

We get an early start from our hotel (in unashamedly seedy Pigalle), and have coffee and croissants in a nearby café.

We wander down the Avenue Rachel (most appropriately) and into the Montmartre Cemetery where we mooch amongst the dreaming monoliths and pay our respects to a stern-looking bust of Emile Zola.

Like this? You'll love...
A Week In Paris by Rachel Hore review
5 best cities for Winter breaks
More travel from GH

We then take a walk up winding streets to Place d’Abbesses to admire its original Art-Nouveau Métro arch and to seek out the Love Wall in the shaded park: on it ‘I love you’ is written in almost every language you can think of.

Like this? You'll love...
A Week In Paris by Rachel Hore review
5 best cities for Winter breaks
More travel from GH

Next we climb many steps towards the white dome of Sacré-Coeur. It's quiet inside, mysterious through wavering candlelight, then we’re out into the fresh air to be astonished by the fabulous view across the city.

Like this? You'll love...
A Week In Paris by Rachel Hore review
5 best cities for Winter breaks
More travel from GH

We take the Métro to Place de la Concorde and join a short queue for the Orangerie.  Inside, Monet’s giant Waterlilies canvasses are arranged just as Fay and Adam would have seen them fifty years ago.

We move in quiet contemplation between his evocations of his lilypond at different times of day in changing light. 

Like this? You'll love...
A Week In Paris by Rachel Hore review
5 best cities for Winter breaks
More travel from GH

Later, my son and I walk by the river for splendid views of the Eiffel Tower. Stopping on a footbridge we contemplate the thousands of padlocks that lovers have clipped to the wire parapets.  

Like this? You'll love...
A Week In Paris by Rachel Hore review
5 best cities for Winter breaks
More travel from GH

Returning to Pigalle we eat handmade pizza in a Montmartre bistro, drink wine and watch football on the television with the locals, before searching out a late arthouse movie at Studio 28. A most satisfying day.

Like this? You'll love...
A Week In Paris by Rachel Hore review
5 best cities for Winter breaks
More travel from GH