Historically, French gardening styles during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries tended towards the straight and rectilinear, she notes – as part of a wider European trend to ‘organise and dominate’ nature. It brought a kind of formality that was the opposite of what was happening in Asia.

‘You don’t have to be a gardening expert or enthusiast to seek out and enjoy gardens,’ Kupec-Larue says. ‘Many are part of, or near, popular destinations, like the serene Jardin Anne Frank just behind the Centre Georges Pompidou in the Marais.’

This secluded 4,000-square-metre garden, dedicated to the Jewish diarist, is made up of three sections. The first, with a cobblestone entrance and a permanent chess table amid blood red camellias and hydrangeas, features a small horse chestnut tree taken from a graft of the tree that Anne recorded observing from her secret annexe in Amsterdam.

Inside is a classical 17th century-style garden with curved trelliswork facing the restored Hôtel de Saint Aignan (originally built in 1650 and now home to the Museum of Jewish Art and History). The final section of the park has a charming play area for children resembling an orchard with a small butterfly and bird garden amid delicately flowering cherry, whitebeam and lilac trees.

Smaller but just as seductive is the Square du Vert-Galant on the western tip of Île de la Cité, an island in the River Seine, where Parisians watch the sunset by weeping willow trees. The triangular patch of green is named after Henry IV of France – his numerous affairs earned him the nickname Le Vert-Galant (‘the go-getter’) – whose statue stands near the centre of the 400-year-old Pont Neuf bridge. The island is still acknowledged as the ancient centre of Paris, with all road distances in France calculated from a point located in the nearby Place du Parvis de Notre-Dame.

Across town the Musée de Montmartre, housed in the 17th century Hôtel Dermarne, offers an escape from the crowds circling the nearby Sacré-Coeur. Once home to numerous influential artists, the newly renovated museum combines a collection of paintings, posters and drawings that recount the history of the area with a restored studio of the artist Suzanne Valadon and her son Maurice Utrillo. The impressionist painter Auguste Renoir also lived here and painted some of his most famous works, including the Bal du moulin de la Galette.