The Eiffel Tower quarter

Curiously, Paris’s most famous landmark was only saved from demolition by the sudden need for “wireless telegraphy” aerials in the first decade of the twentieth century. The tower’s role in telecommunications – its only function apart from tourism – has become increasingly important, and the original crown is now masked by an efflorescence of antennae. After dark, the tower is particularly spectacular, an urban lighthouse illuminated by a double searchlight and, for the first ten minutes of every hour, by thousands of effervescent lights that fizz across its gridlines.

Though you may have to wait a while for the lifts, it’s arguable that you simply haven’t seen Paris until you’ve seen it from the top. While the views are almost better from the second level, especially on hazier days, there’s something irresistible about going all the way to the top, and looking down over the surreally microscopic city below.

The Musée Rodin, arguably Paris’s loveliest museum, occupies a beautiful eighteenth-century mansion that the sculptor leased from the state in return for the gift of all his work at his death. Today, major projects like The Burghers of Calais, The Thinker, The Gate of Hell and Ugolino are exhibited in the extensive and peaceful gardens – the latter forming the centrepiece of the ornamental pond. Indoors, the mould-breaking, stormy vigour of the sculptures sits beautifully with the time-worn elegance of the wooden panelling. Well-loved works like the touchingly erotic The Kiss and The Hand of God get most of the attention, but you can explore quieter rooms full of tortured clay figures that still bear the imprint of the artist’s hands. Don’t miss the room dedicated to Camille Claudel, Rodin’s ill-starred pupil, muse and lover.

On the Trocadéro heights of the north bank of the river, facing the Eiffel Tower, stand the brutally resplendent Palais de Tokyo and Palais de Chaillot. They house some of the city’s best art museums: the Site de Création Contemporaine, the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and the Cité de l’Architecture.

The Palais de Tokyo, contemporary with the nearby Chaillot, houses the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. While it’s no competition for the Pompidou Centre, the cool modernist setting is more fitting – and more contemplative – for a collection focused on early twentieth-century, Paris-based artists. Braque, Chagall, Delaunay, Derain, Léger and Picasso are well represented, and many works were expressly chosen for their Parisian themes. The enormous centrepieces are the two versions of Matisse’s glorious mural, La Danse, and Dufy’s gigantic La Fée Électricité, a mural commissioned by the electricity board to illustrate the story of electricity from Aristotle to the then-modern power station. Temporary exhibitions fill the ground-floor space.