h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It would be easy to assume that the best views in Paris are from the Eiffel Tower - after all, it's the highest point and most famous landmark - but you'd be wrong. Gustav's folly is out of the centre of town, and its very height is its enemy, flattening all the perspective out of the skyline, and distancing you from the action.

You can climb up the Arc de Triomphe and get a better idea of the shape of the city - the classic straight line running from the Louvre, up the Jardins des Tuileries, pinned to the ground by the obelisk in the Place de a Concorde. The Champs Elysées, those mystical fields of the blessed, track wide and inviting up to your resting place in the middle of the Etoile Charles de Gaulle. Turning, you can see the 20th Century extension glorying in all France's recent military triumphs(?), up the Avenue de la Grande Armée to the ultra-modern Arche de la Défense.

For a more artistic view of the city, climb the hill which has traditionally housed painters, potters and the impecunious creative. Montmartre is adorned with Sacré-Coeur, the most beautiful church in Paris (at least externally), but the panorama from its steps is worth the climb on its own (or take the funicular and save your feet).

If you are determined to admire the Eiffel Tower, the place to do it from is Place du Trocadero, across the river, from where you can appreciate its scale and marvel at the way a whole drill-square can be capped by a spider's web of steel. The only detraction is the huge, ugly sign counting down to the millenium in horrid pixellated lights, but thankfully that will be gone before too long. One warning: don't try to take tea at the Café du Trocadero - the waiters are rude even by Parisian standards, and they'll charge you extra for milk.

The best, however, has been saved for last. It's not a famous landmark in itself, but it gives a better feeling of the dynamics of the city than anywhere else, and the only decent perspective on Notre Dame and the Pompidou Centre. Head for the department store Samaritaine, and take the lift up to the top floor, then walk up the stairs and out onto the roof terrace. There's a splendid café; you're ringed by boxes of flowers in the summer, adding a perfume to the heady mix; you can watch the bateaux mouches shuttling up and down the Seine; and there's even a handy map to explain exactly what you can see. The best place in town to take a breather and remember why you're there.