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... 
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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.

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More travel from GH