WE were in danger of losing our lives as we crossed the perilous Place de la Concorde in Paris — just as Marie Antoinette and Louis XVl had done in the French Revolution.

The sheer, horn-honking volume of traffic was enough to make you quite giddy and fall under the wheels of a speeding Renault.

More by luck than judgement this intrepid, luggage-laden, taxi-shunning couple made it to the other side of the capital's biggest square.

They had managed to keep their heads while others 200 years before had lost theirs.

All that remained now was to find the 62-room luxury Victoria Palace Hotel in the rue Blaise Desgoffe, just off the rue de Rennes at the Montparnasse end.

Little did we know that our gentle stroll down the Boulevards St Germain and Raspail would be such a headache.

None of the maps we had to hand gave us an inkling of exactly where this oasis was in the bustle of the capital. It celebrates its centenary in 2013.

All we knew was that Montparnasse station was close to this 'living embodiment of traditional Parisian elegance'.

Eureka! A 'vous etes ici' map was tracked down which, unlike all the others, actually featured the tiny side-street we wanted.

Home and dry, except one moron read the map wrongly and then took an age to find it again to make doubly sure of his bearings.

But it was well worth the effort when we checked into the Victoria Palace (VP), whose previous guests had included James Joyce and one of the 20th century's best short story writers, Katherine Mansfield.

For one bookworm it was a thrill to follow in the great Kiwi's footsteps. He'd had an affinity with Mansfield ever since he'd snapped up a first edition of her extremely rare 1911 debut collection In a German Pension for £20 when the true price should have featured two additional noughts.

Anyway, back to her old haunt.

The VP was an oasis of calm in a desert of madness and chaos — quiet, sombre, gently-lit on a sunny day and peopled by three gents in dark suits.

Sadly, it transpired this supertramp of 40 years 'vagabonding it' abroad had made an unfortunate faux pas by not presenting his business card on arrival — a pre-requisite for acceptance in polite parts of Paris it would appear.

But I had an honest face — and the trusting trio accepted I was in all likelihood a bona fide hack from the wrong side La Manche. Memo to stationer: Set of business cards please to read 'Paul James, international con artist and some time scribbler without portfolio.'

But enough of this unfortunate distraction. It's fair to say everyone we bumped into at the VP was most cordial and very helpful. They were politeness personified as you might expect in a famous Rive Gauche hotel with pedigree. They made our overnight stay as pleasant as it could be — with or without a business card.

So this was Paris! Crack! Crack! Crack! (with apologies to Laurence Sterne, himself a shameless plagiarist).

Within minutes we were in a patisserie frothing at the mouth over an ample choice of mmmmorsels for the gods.

Mille-feuilles won us over. They were consumed with some gusto minutes later in the Jardin du Luxembourg where a seat unpolluted by bird poo was as rare as the absence of an adjective in a travel feature.

Shakespeare and Company's famous secondhand bookstore opposite Notre Dame was a huge disappointment. Over-priced remainders have replaced the battered but half-decent volumes abandoned by bookish ex-pats in years gone by.

An earnest, Hemingwayesque student was found belting out the great American novel on his plastic typewriter in a cubby hole upstairs, something about the big red lorry going up the hill with lots of pots and pans.

But not far away one excited book hunter spotted a rare first edition of Arnold Bennett's masterpiece The Old Wives Tale, in the original boards. Sadly, the note above the door read: "Books in this room are not for sale." Thwarted again.

Besieged Notre Dame was sensibly by-passed in favour of loafing around the massage party on the Pont Louis Philippe.

Talkers were disgorging their euros in return for some gentle body rubbing. Moving on quickly, we slipped down a side street to find the enchantingly rough and ready Le Temps des Cerises where we pored over a newspaper for an update on the Tour de France and poured a cold beer down our parched throats. And so to the Latin Quarter.

I last soaked up the hectic atmosphere of this favoured spot in 1984 in the company of a fair maid who went by the delicious name of Judith Midwinter O'Grady. Happy times.

And the pleasure was repeated a quarter-of-a-century later as we found ourselves sitting down for a moveable feast on a sun-blessed evening at a crowded pavement café in the intimate Place de la Contrascarpe where the spirits of Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald will ever linger.

Hunger was satisfied with that dependable mainstay of French cuisine, pizza. A carafe of coin-polishing Chianti sent it sweetly on its way.

What a thrill it was afterwards to direct a lost French woman to the not far-off rue Mouffetard, an old haunt of 25 years ago.

Back to our fabric-lined Room 202 at the VP via the Boulevard Montparnasse and Hemingway's former local, the Closerie de Lilas — a bit posher nowadays than it was when the writer was 'poor but happy.'

A good night's sleep was had in the impressive canopied bed at VP, from which we arose ready for a substantial and quite exceptional breakfast which kept one intrepid wanderer going to the other side of tomorrow. And did I mention the 'his' and 'hers' bathrobes. It was the kind of hotel where you half-expected a dewy-eyed shoe-shine boy to be permanently camped outside your door.

Hotel staff were kind enough to warn us of the danger of pickpockets lurking in the crowded streets as thousands sought out the arrival of Le Tour in town.

Little did we know that this great sporting event would interrupt a date with culture at the Louvre.

But for the moment we were happy to loaf around a street market off the rue de Rennes where many tempting bits and pieces were resisted on account of our dire poverty.

An hour later, we were resting up in the Place des Vosges, undoubtedly one of the magnificent squares of Europe.

The blistering heat of the midday sun was avoided by occupying a tiny patch of shade within kissing distance of a handsome guitar strummer who gently lulled us to a place in nap heaven.

Lunch was grabbed at yet another Italian restaurant where tagliatelle provencale filled a gap to give us strength to line the Quai Voltaire for two hours waiting for the Tour to hit town.

We had tried to get over the Seine to kill some quality time in the Louvre, but the place was completely sealed off by cops policing the bike race. The only way to get across would be to walk up to Etoile and back down the Champs Elysees, a walk too far in the high temperatures.

So we settled for a snooze next to the great river and contemplated the art of a street vendor who had painted the 'Shekespeare' bookshop in a slapdash manner which put one 'spell it right' fusspot off the purchase.

The riders eventually arrived, speeding past in a jiffy. All that waiting for a blur of colour on my jolted camcorder.

The guilty pusher was an over-loud tourist who some how contrived to let most of Paris know that she was rooting for Lance Armstrong 'because he's an American, just like us!' You don't say.

One of the many joys of Paris is its clutch of historic churches, which are also handy refuges when the heat is on outside.

So it was when we popped into St Sulpice and St Germain des Pres. The former gets my vote every time, with the visit on this occasion enhanced by a Sunday morning service of simple dignity and charm.

This was a delightful return to one of the world's great cities, made all the more memorable for the unrushed quality of our exploration. We simply strolled, stopped, surveyed and strolled again. A distraction at every turn.

Back to the VP, which had played no small part in making this a leisurely stay. We grabbed our bags, kept for us way after the check-out time by the accommodating staff, and made the reluctant journey by bus from Montparnasse to hateful Charles de Gaulle Airport, an unspeakably ugly and depressing point of departure.

The one consolation was the spectacular views of the les jolis toits de Paris from the Flybe jet as it climbed into the sunset.

Aaahh, Paris in the springtime, summertime, wintertime, autumn... any old season will do. She never disappoints.

PAUL JAMES