A schoolgirl in Paris

Where better for a sophisticated young lady to spend her 11th birthday than the French capital? Shopping, sightseeing, more shopping... even her mother, Victoria Summerley, had a ball

When my daughter told me that she wanted to go to Paris for her 11th birthday, I knew exactly what she had in mind. She wanted to do some shopping, she said, and see the Eiffel Tower, and maybe go to a museum. But what she really meant was that she wanted to star in her own teen movie, the sort that used to have Audrey Hepburn or Leslie Caron in the leading role, and now has Lindsay Lohan, with someone popping out from behind a tree to sing something that sounds like, "Sank evven for leetle gulls".

When my daughter told me that she wanted to go to Paris for her 11th birthday, I knew exactly what she had in mind. She wanted to do some shopping, she said, and see the Eiffel Tower, and maybe go to a museum. But what she really meant was that she wanted to star in her own teen movie, the sort that used to have Audrey Hepburn or Leslie Caron in the leading role, and now has Lindsay Lohan, with someone popping out from behind a tree to sing something that sounds like, "Sank evven for leetle gulls".

Think An American in Paris crossed with The Princess Diaries, and you get the picture. So, where to begin? Well, we weren't going to get on a plane, that's for sure. There's nothing like an airport delay to take the magic out of a weekend away. No, we decided to take the train, which of course meant the Eurostar.

I have a confession to make. I love Eurostar. I've never got over the childish thrill of going through the tunnel and suddenly being in France. I adore going first class and having my meal served at the table. The whole experience is glamorous in the way that travel used to be, and certainly isn't now. These days, when the Orient Express goes nowhere near the Orient, Concorde has been grounded and long-haul describes the queue at US immigration, the idea that you can jump on a train in London and be in Paris in a couple of hours seems wonderfully romantic. You can even buy your Métro pass at the London terminal, so that when you step off the train at Gare du Nord, you're ready to jump right into la vie parisienne.

My daughter and I arrived in Paris feeling pleasantly full of pain aux raisins (me) and sausage and scrambled eggs (her). Armed with our tickets, we headed for the Alma-Marceau Métro station, at one end of the avenue Montaigne, one of the smartest streets in Paris. And there, rising above the designer boutiques, was the Plaza Athénée, our hotel.

Choosing a place to stay had been tricky. We could have picked somewhere cheaper, but I'd spent weekends in cheap Parisian hotels before, and I knew from experience that there was nothing exciting about a two-star dive in the Bastille area. Plenty of time for that when my daughter was old enough to travel on her own. On the other hand, the grand old names - the Ritz, the George V - don't cut it in an 11-year-old's concept of cool. But the Plaza Athénée was not only beautiful and distinguished, it had recently featured in the final episode of Sex and the City.

My daughter, of course, isn't old enough to watch Sex and the City, but she is old enough to know that Sarah Jessica Parker is a style icon. If the Plaza Athénée was good enough for SJP - and, moreover, offered a view of the Eiffel Tower from your window - it was good enough for her.

As we left the Métro on that sunny April morning and saw the Eiffel Tower beaming down on us, we knew we had made the right decision. This was Paris as envisaged by Hollywood. All around us, there seemed to be flowers, sunshine, gorgeous clothes and glamorous people. One woman even walked past carrying a white poodle.

The minute you walk into the Plaza Athénée, you can tell that attention to detail has been elevated to an art form. The trademark scarlet awnings over the windows, and the sunshades in the courtyard match exactly the colour of the flowers in the window boxes. The hotel smells fantastic, as if someone were on duty 24 hours a day lighting scented candles (it wouldn't surprise me to find that someone was employed for this purpose). The restaurants are supervised by Alain Ducasse, one of the most celebrated chefs in France, if not the world. Our gleaming marble bathroom had a child-sized pair of slippers laid out ready for my daughter. And the hotel is run by people who - like Hector Elizondo playing the hotel manager in Pretty Woman - combine calm, discreet efficiency with twinkly eyed charm, and treat 11-year-olds with as much deference as they do dowagers.

Having asked the concierge to recommend a nearby restaurant for supper, and book a table for us, we set off to do some shopping. I would not recommend setting foot on the boulevard Haussmann on a Saturday afternoon. Think Christmas shopping in Oxford Street, then double it. But my daughter had decided that she wanted to go to the Galeries Lafayette (the Paris equivalent of Harrods), which is on the boulevard, so we plunged in. Three hours later, clutching our own white poodle (a soft toy bought in Printemps, the Paris equivalent of House of Fraser), we returned, with relief, to the hotel. Then it was time to go out to eat, at a brasserie round the corner called Café André, where my daughter tried frogs' legs for the first time, and I anaesthetised my aching feet and brain with some Chablis and new-season asparagus.

I had thought that my daughter would be as tired as I was, but she was very keen to go on a bateau-mouche (river boat). So we strolled down to the Pont de l'Alma - near the Alma-Marceau Métro station - where there is a bateau-mouche embarkation point.

A river cruise, which lasts about an hour and 15 minutes, costs €7 per adult and €4 for a child; I think it was the best €11 I have spent in my life. It was a lovely moonlit evening - mild enough to sit on deck without freezing. Paris, as a candidate city, is currently illuminated by night in Olympic colours and looked even more spectacular (are you listening, London?) than it normally does. The bridges and embankments were lined with people - sightseers, students and those who just seemed to be enjoying a bit of alfresco socialising. The great landmarks slid past - the golden horses on the Pont Alexandre III; the glass roof of the Grand Palais; the names of the French cities on the Musée d'Orsay, that grandest of former railway stations; the pointed prow of the Ile de la Cité and the towers of Notre Dame - while the crowds on board whooped like Gallic cowboys as they passed under each bridge. My daughter loved it.

The next morning, we awoke to the sound of birdsong. Our room looked out on to the hotel courtyard, with its tier upon tier of window boxes and Virginia creeper, and the combination of the lipstick-red flowers and dawn chorus made it seem as if we were in the midst of an exotic aviary.

Breakfast was reassuringly traditional, in the way that a Chanel handbag or a Hermès scarf is reassuringly traditional. Served beneath a massive chandelier, I had eggs Benedict garnished with truffle, while my daughter had fresh fruit followed by chocolate crêpes. We didn't have room for the breakfast pastries, but one of the twinkly eyed ones must have noticed our expressions of regret. Without saying a word, he came over and put some into a little bag, which he presented to us with a bow.

We'd decided to spend the morning exploring the Marché aux Oiseaux and Notre Dame, both on the Ile de la Cité. We walked up to the Franklin D Roosevelt Métro station, at the other end of the avenue Montaigne, and as we made our way to the platform we heard an accordionist playing "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring". He played it so beautifully, it was almost like a soundtrack to our "Paris: The Movie" weekend.

And when we got out at Châtelet, there was a full orchestre slave playing Balkan dance tunes and singing in dense Slavic harmony, much to the delight of the small crowd that had gathered. The Marché aux Oiseaux appears every Sunday alongside the Marché aux Fleurs, between the Conciergerie and the Hôtel-Dieu. It sells not only birds but also rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters and other small furry creatures, and the air is full of squawks and cries of "Mignon!". We could have bought a parrot, a chicken, even a peacock, but we contented ourselves with a neon-pink model of the Eiffel Tower.

We had intended to visit Notre Dame, but as we rounded the corner, we found that huge screens were showing the investiture of the Pope to vast crowds, both inside and out. So we made our way to a nearby salon de thé and had a coffee while waiting for the Musée de la Curiosité et de la Magie, in the Marais, to open at 2pm. This small museum, at 11 rue St-Paul is a little treasure-house of magic memorabilia, including distorting mirrors, trick portraits and a collection of automata. Above the steps that lead down to the entrance, a quill pen scratches out the word "Entrée", like something from a Harry Potter movie. But the best part of the museum is the magic show, held every hour. The magicians are funny, bilingual and very slick, so I enjoyed it as much as my daughter did.

We just had enough time for a bit of retail therapy in the winding streets of the Marais before making our way to the Gare du Nord for the Eurostar home. As the "Paris: the Movie" credits started rolling and we headed off into the sunset, my daughter adjusted her new black beret in the reflection in the train's window.

Give me the facts

Getting there

Eurostar (08705 186 186; www.eurostar.com), from £59 return to Paris Gare du Nord from London Waterloo or Ashford International. Or you can fly from a variety of UK airports to Paris Charles de Gaulle, from which the RER (suburban railway) takes about half an hour to Gare du Nord, or you can continue on to the more central Métro station of Châtelet.

Staying there

Hôtel Plaza Athénée, 25 avenue Montaigne, 75008 Paris (00 33 1 53 67 55 65; www.plaza-athenee-paris.com). Doubles from €690 (£493), room only.

Further information

Paris Tourism (00 33 8 92 68 3000; www.parisinfo. com). French Tourist Office (09068 244 123, calls cost 60p a minute; www.franceguide.com).