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The simple plastic weave of a café chair, a blackboard chalked with the specials du jour, the cloudy comfort of a cool pastis and the sinuous scent of coffee and fresh-baked bread. In the City of Lights, memories don't have to be grand, monumental or historic to sear themselves into the consciousness. It's the tiny things, as well as the big things, that make this city on the Seine one of the world's greatest treasures. Nowhere else – not London, not New York, not Rome, not Madrid – nowhere comes close. Paris is just another city, like a Rolls Royce is just another car.

Paris has been around a long time. She's been occupied, invaded, played host to revolution and student unrest, but she's never been deliberately damaged unless you count the efforts of Baron Haussmann clearing away a swathe of medieval slums to create his noble boulevards in the nineteenth century, or students tearing up cobbles on the Boul' Mich to pelt police in the 1960s. And when Hitler gave the order to destroy the city in the last days of the Second World War, General von Choltitz, commander of the occupying forces, balked at the command and the charges were defused. And so Paris stands today, untouched, unblemished, simply one of the world's most magnificent cities. Just ask anyone born within a fifty-kilometre radius of Notre Dame – the true Parisian – and he will nod his head and say, 'bien sur, of course, it's true'. And that's not just civic or patriotic pride. It's fact.

If there's any similarity at all between Paris and other cities, it's that it takes time to know her. Like tourists on safari in search of buffalo, leopard, lion, elephant and rhino, Paris first-timers usually content themselves with the Big Five: Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, the Champs Elyssés, the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre, and points between. Stopping only at corner cafés for the obligatory coffee (maybe accompanied by a shot of Calvados – you are in Paris, after all), or finding some gingham-clothed table for lunch to watch the world go by, you'll return to your lodgings footsore and fatigued. But once you've tucked the big ones under your belt, then you can really begin to explore.

Strange though it sounds, second-timers to the city should think about its cemeteries. No other city in the world celebrates death on quite so epic or majestic a scale as Paris. From the Panthéon (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Victor Hugo and Voltaire) to Les Invalides (Napoleon's Mausoleum), from the vast acreage of Pere Lachaise to the gravel pathways of Montparnasse, Paris elevates death to a thing of beauty. Nor are there many city cemeteries with such a distinguished guest list. At Pere Lachaise you'll find Isadora Duncan and Jim Morrison, Balzac and Chopin (his heart is in Warsaw), Ingres and Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf and Proust. Or make your way to Montparnasse, the final resting place of Guy de Maupassant, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Baudelaire; or to Montmartre where Dégas, Heinrich Heine, Stendahl, Nijinsky and Dumas lie. And with these three cemeteries spread strategically around the city, there's a lot to see in between.

Museums, I've always found, are far better left for bad-weather days. Leaving aside the usual suspects – the Louvre and d'Orsay – remember the names Carnavalet, Cluny and Marmottan for that unexpected insight into this extraordinary city. Sunshine and blue skies, however, shout out for parks and gardens like the always glorious Luxembourg, the intimate Bagatelle Rose Garden, or the newer parcs of André Citroen and Bercy. Clear days when the sky is high also suggest views and you can find some of the best from the top of the arch at La Défense, the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame (386 steps), or from the elevators of the inside-out Pompidou Centre and the cobbled ramparts of Montmartre and Sacre-Coeur. Which is when you gain a sense of Paris as a whole – girdled by low hills, romantically roof-topped, split into stoney blocks, the creamy limestone of her buildings bisected by the narrow lines of tree-shaded avenues and grand boulevards.

Since this is Paris, probably the most pleasurable way to familiarise yourself with the city is to pack your credit cards and go shopping – life on a Paris street never less than a treat for the eye, if a strain on the wallet. Whether you're in spending mood or content to window-shop (leche-vitrines – 'lick the glass'), there's something here for everyone. And the ground you'll cover: from couturier salles and haute-couture on rue du Faubourg-St-Honoré and Avenue Montaigne to depots-ventes on rue St-Placide and rue de la Pompe where you'll find last season's lines at half the price; from department stores like Galeries Lafayette and Au Bon Marché to the grand luxe galleries, antiquaires and big-name boutiques of St Germain-des-Prés. And when your credit cards melt make for the still-to-be-discovered designers crowding the trendy, boho sidewalks of the Beaubourg and Bastille, Montmartre and the Marais.

Street markets, too, are a good way to get to know this city – and the people who live and work here. Stroll along the banks of the Seine on a Sunday afternoon – a marvellous, magical walk – and barter with the bouquinistes for that rare first edition or print of old Paris. Or visit one of the city's food markets – somewhere like rue Mouffetard, a sloping, winding medieval street in the shadow of the Panthéon. Or head for the Périphérique, the ring-road that surrounds the city, to hone your haggling at the puces (flea-markets) of St-Ouen, Vanves and Montreuil where you'll find everything from nails to nautical instruments.

And then, of course, there are those tiny things, the small, personal discoveries: that unexpected park, that special table, that back-street atelier, that view – what Parisians call their petits trésors and keep to themselves. I've spent years collecting them and the greatest satisfaction was discovering them myself. So go on, get out there and find your own.

Just to help you on your way, don't miss…
…the first baguettes and croissants from Poujauran's bakery on rue Jean-Nicot; the flower market on place de la Madeleine; a mid-morning table at Café Marly on rue de Rivoli; the cobbles and shutters of Passage d'Enfer; some creative shopping along Viaduc des Arts; afternoon tea in the Galerie Vivienne; the cloister walk around place des Vosges; a pedicure at Les Bains du Marais; the autumn-evening quais of Ile-St-Louis; Bloody Marys at Rosebud on rue Delambre; an evening stroll along rue de la Butte-aux-Cailles; late-night beef at La Maison d'Aubrac on rue Marbeuf; and the Catacombs, deep below place Denfert-Rochereau.

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