I don’t know whether the tour groups that wear out the cobblestones between Notre Dame cathedral and the Marais, and clot my neighborhood of the Eiffel Tower, ever think about Montparnasse, or whether many of their great number do realize the glorious place in French civilization this neighborhood has. Montparnasse was the world’s navel of Modernism in art, between the two World Wars and earlier, but history is not a detailed preoccupation of recent generations.

Two years ago, Rosa Bonheur gave the Buttes Chaumont park a reason to be joyful and Paris hipsters a reason to leave the Marais and people are taking advantage of her largesse. The Buttes Chaumont, although not the biggest park in Paris (it is the third-biggest, in fact), has steep hills and wandering paths cutting through it that are delightfully overgrown and forgotten-feeling, much like the more rugged parts of New York City's Central Park.

It may not strike first-time visitors to Paris, but one of the world's most civilized cities is also a theme park. Parisland, I call it. And not with derision. For those who love art, literature, music, food, high style and history—that's you, and you, and most certainly me—Paris just might be the ideal destination.

Are you down on the coin, or just trying to be smart in order to save for that perfect blouse or pair of shoes? Here’s a guide just in time for la rentrée of 8 free (or terribly cheap) things to do in Paris. Don’t ever say you can’t get something for nothing!

What monument would you mount to a man who made Brigitte Bardot purr on “Harley David Son of a Bitch,” Jane Birkin moan in “I Love You, Me Neither” and tarted up his own daughter with “Lemon Incest”? The City of Paris, in a move as eccentric as Serge’s '80s synth singles, decided that the Serge Gainsbourg Garden was a fitting tribute.

Surf the web or phone home on the streets of Paris via JC Decaux. In the category of "what will they think of next?", now you don't even have to be "off-line" when you are going to the market and back in Paris, thanks the these new street kiosks called Borne from France Telecom and Orange.

When time zones and lack of sleep wreak havoc on your natural rhythms and you find yourself up at four – or still wide awake at midnight – don’t head for the hotel bar or stare at telly. Get out there and see what Paris has to offer, no matter the hour.

Paris has always been the capital of romance, right? Some of us might connect it with the fairy tales we were read as children. But in true Gallic style, the course of true love doesn’t run smooth. For the French, it has to involve tragedy and obstacles and it probably doesn’t end happily either. One of the most captivating and hopeless French romances comes to us from the Middle Ages, immortalised in the letters left by the lovers. I was reminded of it whilst taking a walk in the Pere Lachaise cemetery….

Has it really been ten years since we welcomed the Millennium in Paris? The years have flown by, filled with many visits to France, which inspired the beginning of our Music and Markets Tours business with the inaugural tour in Provence in 2003, dozens of new friends in this inviting country, and even the purchase of a village house in the south of France.