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While modern fiction-fanciers are flocking to Paris to follow the Da Vinci Code trail, my six-year-old daughter Simi and I came in pursuit of two altogether different storybook characters - Madeline and Eloise.

You may be familiar with these two feisty little girls, both about the same age as Simi. Madeline, as created by Ludwig Bemelmans in 1939, is an orphan at a boarding school in Paris, with a fearlessness that leads her into numerous adventures. At three-and-a-half years old, Simi could recite the entire book:
�In an old house in Paris
that was covered with vines
lived twelve little girls in two straight lines..."

Simi came to Eloise only last year, but this eccentric rich girl was also an instant hit. Created by Kay Thompson in 1955, she lives at the Plaza, New York, but heads off to Paris for one entire book, along with Nanny and six trunks of essentials.

My idea was that, rather than drag Simi around the landmarks of Paris, with her wailing, �Can we go to Disneyland now?", I'd engage her interest by making it her exploration. We read the books over and over before leaving, Simi picked up Eloise's favourite phrase (�pas de quoi") and I photocopied the main illustrations (rather than take our two heavy hardback compendiums).

Enough sights were featured to keep us occupied for a week in different locales, spotting the classics - Opera (where Madeline and her chums "smiled at the good"), Place Vendome (where "they frowned at the bad") and the Eiffel Tower ("absolutely large and rawther high," according to Eloise) - and trying to identify others (just which bridge is it that Madeline falls off into the Seine? And which is the one with winged horses that Eloise stands under?)

I'd hoped to stay at the same hotel as Eloise, the Relais Bisson on the Quai des Grands Augustins, but this turned out to be fictional. Instead, we installed ourselves at the kind of place where Eloise would feel at home, with doormen and swanky elevators and mountainous breakfasts -Le Bristol, on the rue du Faubourg St Honore.

I thought we'd start by browsing Eloise's favourite fashion houses, Dior et al, but Simi is not unlike Eloise in character: wilful, mischievous and a slight liability when going round shops or round (and round) revolving doors or pressing her nose up to very clean windows. "Ne touche pas!" were the first words she heard in French.

And so we skibbled past the boutiques and on to Place de la Concorde, where we found the fountain that Eloise dived into, with the obelisk in the background. On we went through the Tuileries, stopping for a ride on the carousel, and on to the Louvre, where, says Eloise, you go "if there is a lot of rain and wet". Simi cavorted a little around the glass pyramid, but as it was sunny, we carried on walking.

I had been puzzling over one illustration of Madeline and her chums walking over a footbridge towards a domed building. As we stepped on to the Pont des Arts, looking towards the Institut de France, the picture came to life. The triumph of finding such scenes was like ticking off road signs or birds in those little I Spy books I had as a child. If I was more excited than Simi at this stage, she was about to be drawn in when the story itself came alive.

We walked along the left bank of the Seine looking for the bridge where, "Nobody knew so well how to frighten Miss Clavel/ until the day she slipped and fell./ Poor Madeline would now be dead/ But for a dog that kept its head/ And dragged her safe from a watery grave."

We found Ludwig Bemelman's viewpoint, though I began to realise what licence he took in his illustrations, introducing alien elements onto the skyline, moving trees into the frame. Nevertheless, the arches of the Pont Neuf, the oldest bridge in France, were unmistakable, set against a backdrop of historic town houses on the Ile de la Cite.

Simi was eager to see if we could find Madeline, so we went down to the cobbled embankment. And there, lying in the sun in front of the Sapeurs Pompiers boat, was a large golden retriever. The dog that saved Madeline! "Look, it's Genevieve!" I said. Simi raced up and put her arms round her. Soon they were playing and trotting up and down the quay together. All went well until "Genevieve" strode up to me and mounted my leg.

Nevertheless, we came back several times during the week to say hello to "her", en route for a mango ice cream at Berthillon on the Ile St Louis, and a play at the Jardin du Luxembourg (containing one of the few playgrounds in the city, at 2,50 Euros a pop).

We took a trip down the Seine on a Vedette du Pont-Neuf and spotted Eloise's bridge with the golden winged horses, the Pont Alexandre III. We went up the Eiffel Tower - a classic that cannot be missed, but one you need mountaineering gear for. We only got as far as the second level before freezing in the gales and queues, and so descended for saucisses and chips.

Another day, we joined the ladies who lunch at Les Deux Magots, at Place St Germain des Press. I showed the waiter the illustration in Madeline and his face lit up. Pointing to a white-aproned figure in the book and then to an elderly waiter, he said "C'est lui! Yves!" Yves rather dampened our elation, however, by shrugging his recognition of neither book nor author.

The old house in Paris that was covered in vines also eluded us. Since Madeline's next door neighbour was the Spanish ambassador, I started by tracking down the ambassador's residence. But it looked nothing like the turreted, detached mansion in the illustrations. And there was not a vine-clad house in sight. We gave up on that one.

On our last day, we had one more sight left to experience. The Arc de Triomphe. Eloise circled round it in every possible mode of transport, from a tricycle to the roof of a bubble car. Just looking at it wouldn't do. We borrowed one of Le Bristol's fleet of Smart cars and a doorman as chauffeur and whizzed round three times, shot across five lanes of traffic to halt for a photo, and then returned to the hotel.

We loved Paris. I don't think Simi would have walked nearly as far, kept as good humour or shown such interest in the sights if we hadn't been on our mission. But if we'd spent every day at the hotel's rooftop pool and ordering room service a� la Eloise (�Merci beaucoup and charge it please!"), she'd have been in heaven.

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