Driving in Paris may seem intimidating at first, but planning ahead can make it a pleasure – surrender yourself to city life. It’s well worth brushing up on the local road rules before you go. Low emission zones have been introduced from 2017, while you also can’t use headsets for phone calls, in addition to hand-held mobile phones being illegal while driving. Free parking in Paris is very difficult to find – if your hotel or apartment does not have parking included, there are numerous paid car parks.

You’ll be driving on the right and overtaking on the left as you navigate Paris. Speed limits vary by area - in urban areas it’s 50kmh and 130kmh on motorways. Limits are lowered if there is bad weather. A-roads or Autoroutes are usually toll roads, although those around Paris are largely free.

The famous Boulevard Pèriphèrique is the ring road that circles the city, with a speed limit of 70kmh. It’s the busiest road in France, but still the best way to get from one part of the city to another. There are more than 30 junctions leading to different parts of the city. If you plan on heading out of Paris to explore the country further, the A1 heads north to Lille, the A4 north-east to Reims, the A5 south-east to Troyes and the A6 to Auxerre and onwards to Lyon. If you feel the lure of the coast, drive south-west on the A10 and then A11 towards Le Mans, Angers and, eventually, Nantes. You may find yourself heading off onto smaller roads to discover beautiful villages, châteaux and more.

Paris is a perfect place to visit whatever you choose to do. You can indulge in the romantic side of the city, staring up at the buildings as you wander the boulevards. Or you can tick off the A-list - the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Sacré-Coeur and the Louvre. Do it at your own pace and discover a city that’ll take your breath away.

Musing in the musee

It’s a good idea to have a battle plan ready when visiting the Louvre. With 35,000 works, it would take dozens of visits just to see everything briefly. It’s famous for Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, but if you can’t fight your way through the crowds for a glimpse of that, don’t worry – you’ll still have Michelangelo, Delacroix, Rembrandt, Titian, Raphael, Botticelli and more. And that’s just the paintings – the Louvre is also a store of Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Byzantine antiquities.

Some visitors prefer the Musée d'Orsay, not least because it’s housed in an art-nouveau former railway station that is worth the visit alone. It’s dedicated to works from 1848 up to 1914 which includes impressionists such as Renoir, Monet, Degas and Van Gogh, plus sculptures by Rodin.

A garden for gourmets

Paris’ image as the home of gilded, formal restaurants with several waiting staff for each diner is somewhat out of date… unless you want that experience, that is. The cream-based sauces and extravagant dinners can still be found in the capital, but many of the most exciting and innovative chefs have changed with the times.

The celebrated Alain Ducasse relaunched his Avenue Montaigne restaurant in 2014 with a fresh emphasis on vegetables and cereal, while Arpège has held three Michelin stars for more than 20 years. It doesn’t come cheap though – budget 150 euros for a main course. More affordable are the countless bistros and brasseries peppering Paris, where you can lunch on the old reliables – cassoulet, steak frites, duck rillettes, garlic soup…a taste of real France.

Underground, overground

Unless you’re of a nervous disposition, the Paris Catacombes are a memorably macabre place to visit. You’ll descend some 60ft below Paris to a world built of skulls and bones, constructed to alleviate the pressure on Paris’ over-stuffed cemeteries. It’s haunting, spooky and probably not for young children, and it’s definitely worth booking in advance as you’re given a timed entry.

For something more traditional, many of the city’s great sights are close to the River Seine, including Notre Dame. Shakespeare and Company, on the Left Bank, is an English bookstore with a long history. The current branch opened in 1951 after an earlier version closed during the World War Two occupation. Whereas the original was visited by the likes of James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway, the new one has a policy of allowing artists and writers to lodge there in return for helping in the shop – some 30,000 have done so since 1951. It’s a place with its own literary atmosphere, full of antiquarian books, first editions and visitors taking advantage of the free reading library.

Literature and love, food and the poetry of the French language – Paris is generous with its gifts. See as much of it as possible, and the France that lies outside its boundaries, with car hire in Paris.