Paris is better than you

HEATHER MALLICK has fallen hopelessly in love with the city of lights. Sure the waiters are snooty and the drivers vicious. But she will always return for more - more passion, more colour, more life.

After a lavish breakfast at Le Pain Quotidien, wander the winding streets of the Marais district, left, famous for its small shops and great atmosphere. And be sure not to miss Monet's home at Giverny, where you will learn that comfort and beauty has nothing to do with expensive suede and Yabu Pushelberg.

People travel to escape themselves. It can't be done, of course, but I firmly believe that you can make a better try in pleasure-drenched Paris than on some tropical beach, counting up your failures as you lie in the sun and broil and crisp and fry. Or cry.

You see, Paris is better than you. It is more interesting than you, more attractive, more storied, more passionate, serves better meals, is better dressed and, furthermore, lets you know it. Yet, it may be the only city in the world that you don't thoroughly resent as a result.

Even if your first trip to Paris is a bust - you said pommes de terre when you meant pommes and the sadistic waiter gave you a three-pound potato on an otherwise empty dessert platter; you stepped in dog's mess, which made you unpopular with the other tourists on the Eiffel Tower elevator, and as for your hotel room, you've seen cardboard boxes that were bigger - you know you will return. For despite the minor humiliations inflicted on the visitor, Paris has so many things to admire. You'll be back.

Stendhal called it "crystallization." He used the example of a leafless wintry bough thrown in a salt mine. When it emerges, it's studded with diamond-like salt crystals. Crystallization is "a mental process which draws from every-thing that happens new proofs of the perfection of the loved one."

Things about Paris that will weigh down your bough with crystals: The way a flower shop on the rue d'Antoine scatters rose petals on the sidewalk to entice customers; the dry, sunny taste of the inexpensive house white; the yellows and blues of Monet's house at Giverny; the way even the cheap trinkets on the rue de Rivoli are attractive; the drama and style of the Métro stations; the pain au lait aux pépites de chocolat; the way cost-effectiveness doesn't come first with the French.

Things about Paris that give you pause: The composure of the 60-year-old Frenchwoman who passes you on the street, making you realize that North America knows nothing about genuine beauty; the shocked, hurt look on the face of the waiter as he takes away your mostly uneaten flounder ("Monsieur, je suis indisposée," which was dangerously true, didn't really help); the way Père Lachaise cemetery turns death into an aesthetic statement; the way the customer is always wrong, unlike in New York where the customer is always the Emperor Tiberius; the French belief that all of life's problems can be solved with some expensive skin lotions.

Then there are the things you don't like: The fact that French drivers do actually set out to kill you; the way the French cast all artists not currently in favour into hell (for example, clogging the viewing space of Raoul Dufy's great curved La Fée Electricité mural with a floor installation consisting of a bunch of old lumpy socks); your "charming small hotel," which is squalid; the tiny dribbles on the sidewalks from those little doggies.

You can leave Paris without angst because you know for certain that you will visit again. And the best thing is, in some way you are a better person for having visited. The effect may not last long, but it's there, and on your next trip, you will merely pick up where you left off.

Best times to visit

Spring and fall are loveliest, when temperatures are not extreme. Paris gets heat waves too, and is not as air-conditioned as it thinks it is. Don't travel in August, when Parisians go on holiday. During fashion season, you won't be able to get a hotel or restaurant booking anyway.

Worst time to visit

Unless you love it when sweat pastes your clothes to your body; unless you've always wanted to sit in an overheated taxi with the air as still and hot as the honking cars around you; unless you adore the stench of garbage that has been bubbling in its own bag while sitting on the sidewalk for days on end, it's best to avoid New York during the extremes of July and August. It's like a sweat lodge without the spiritual healing.

A great 24 hours

Choose a luxe, centrally located hotel like the Paris Inter-Continental (3 rue de Castiglione). Breakfast lavishly at Le Pain Quotidien (18 place du Marché Saint Honoré), which is alarmingly fashionable, but has polite, patient waiters. Then walk southeast and wander the winding streets of the Marais district, which is famous for its small shops and great atmosphere. Or visit the Louvre, which is even closer, for two or three hours. But don't exhaust yourself, for you could live at the Louvre and not see it all. Have lunch on Paris's most beautiful square, the Place des Vosges. Gaze around you and contemplate the life of a rich person with a house here in the 17th century. Or this century, for that matter. Dine at Le Grand Véfour (17 rue de Beaujolais), one of Paris's oldest and most magnificent restaurants, for which you will have reserved six months in advance. Stroll through the Tuileries on the way back to the hotel. Drinks at Willi's Wine Bar (13 rue des Petits-Champs), one of the best in the city. Fall into bed happy.

Best street food

Eating is not an ambulatory activity in Paris. Sit down.

If you want to picnic in a park or in your hotel room, or to do some minor eating while perching, the city is filled with pastry shops, bakeries, cheese shops, charcuteries, all selling beautifully prepared food. Stores like Fauchon, Lenôtre, Dalloyau, Hédiard and Flo Prestige combine all of the above. My favourite Right Bank tea shop is Angelina at 226 rue de Rivoli. Proust ate madeleines there, if this sort of thing matters to you, and their hot chocolate - thick, rich, almost solid - is the real thing. In the window, they maintain surreal pastry mountains.

On the Left Bank, go to Ladurée at 16 rue Royale, near the Place de la Madeleine, which itself has one of the biggest and best concentrations of luxury food shops in the world. Patricia Wells's The Food Lover's Guide to Paris is helpful, but even Wells admits she cannot cover everything. Pick a foodstuff a day and go from shop to shop enjoying yourself. Your foie gras day will be particularly shocking - entire stores are devoted to it - as you gorge yourself on the liver of a goose that has been forcibly engorged. It's barbaric, and I haven't even mentioned the delicious things French cooks do with blood.

Shopping

If you have only one day to shop, go to Galeries Lafayette (40 boulevard Haussmann), which is like a giant diffused Holt Renfrew with a stained-glass skydome, a tourist discount card and an Aladdin's Cave of stuff you want. All the other almost-as-wonderful department stores are nearby, at the Chausée d'Antin Métro stop. My two favou-rite stores in Paris are the Hotel Crillon gift shop (10 place de la Concorde and 17 rue de la Paix), which sells unusual accessories, and the remarkable Rosemarie Schulz (30 rue Boissy d'Anglas) near the Place de la Madeleine. It sells fabrics, scented pillows, placemats and things made of flower petals. It is intoxicating and the most entrancing, creative shop I have ever seen.

But it is not possible to shop badly in this city.

Absolutely must not miss

Yes, Notre Dame Cathedral is spectacular. But Sainte-Chapelle, the small 13th-century Gothic chapel nearby, with its walls of stained glass, will make you gasp with astonishment, even joy. It is tiny, and its apparent fragility is such that its survival throughout the centuries beggars belief. You will have it al-most to yourself.

You may not care for gardening. You may not like Claude Monet's water-lily paintings. But you should still visit the painter's home at Giverny. Not only will it give you a new respect for Canadian gardeners who plug away in a cold climate to achieve Monet-like effects, but you will also learn about what makes a house comfortable and attractive, and it has nothing to do with ex-pensive suede and Yabu Pushelberg. It has to do with colour and comfort and harmony. Giverny is a life-changing place. Sit on a bench, stare at the lily pond and the Japanese bridge and ponder this unfamiliar sensation of serenity. Tours are heavily advertised and are easily booked through your hotel.

Most overrated

Unless you're a hardened tourist, stay away from Versailles. The palace's massive forecourt is full of tour buses advancing like a special effect - a giant invasion of beetles, say. Inside, you will experience overcrowding that rivals stage front at a rock concert, except everyone is old, cranky and from Iowa. No toilets to speak of. The French must do this deliberately, and I don't blame them.

For all that you will want to see the Champs-Elysées, it is really just a big wide street leading to the Arc de Triomphe, the kind of street that has 40 airline head offices and restaurants such as Planet Hollywood. It is dull, charmless, Americanized, and the restaurants on its side streets are universally dire. Good for parades, though.

If you go

Do your research. Aside from the guides by Gershman and Wells mentioned above, Adam Gopnik's recently published Paris to the Moon is a wonderful, considered study of the city and the stubbornly French way of life in an era of harmonization (read "sameness"). For more specific information, there are many Web sites: www.bpa-ris.com is particularly helpful, as is www.parishotels.com. All major airlines, including Air Canada and Canada 3000, fly to Paris. The range of fares and package deals is advertised widely and is huge. Like Paris itself, it all depends on the comfort level you are after.