Art rules the metro in Paris

Some people make the mistake of assuming the Paris Métro is just a means of getting about Paris, but for some of us it is itself the main attraction: the most efficient and aesthetic underground railway in the world - and one whose beauties are currently being burnished in a scheme of works called Renouveau du Métro.

It's certainly worth three hours of your time, and the cost of the three tickets expended in the following itinerary for a Morning on the Métro.

Begin at Gare du Nord by heading for the southbound platform (direction Porte d'Orléans) of Line 4. You'll have noticed that you accessed your platform by skipping down a couple of short flights of stairs. There is no clay suitable for the building of deep level tubes under Paris; instead, the geology dictated a system built just below the surface by a method that fortuitously produced vault-shaped rather than tubular tunnels. So the basic Métro station is pleasingly reminiscent of the wine cellar of a grand chateau.

The elegant template of white bevelled tiles has quite often been departed from in some ill-advised makeovers since the Métro was begun in 1900, and you will notice that the white tiles on your platform at Gare du Nord are flat but as part of the Renouveau programme bevelled ones will be re-installed, as they recently have been five stops along at Étienne Marcel.

At Châtelet, change onto Line 1 and take direction La Défense for Louvre Rivoli station.

Here, the platform is moodily lit, the better to show off works of ancient Egyptian and classical statuary spotlit in alcoves. Exit the station, and you will see one of the sinuous green wrought iron station entrances designed by Hector Guimard, 87 of which remain. The original Métro stations didn't usually need to house lifts or escalators, so they asserted themselves on the streets by these displays of fantastical art nouveau ironwork.

Now turn left along Rue de Rivoli, then right into Place du Palais-Royale. Just beyond the north-west corner of this square is a beautiful station entrance of more modern vintage.

It resembles a tangle of beaded necklaces; it was created by Jean Michel-Othoniel in 2000, for the Métro centenary, and it leads down into Palais Royale Musée du Louvre station. Here, resume heading west on Line 1 until you come to Concorde.

Now head north on Line 12. This and Line 13 were not built by the original Métro Company of 1900 but by the Nord Sud company in 1910, occasioning a couple of low-key celebrations this year. In 1930, the Nord Sud went bust, partly because it spent so much money on tiles. Look at those on the Line 12 platform at St Lazare: white bevelled tiles offset by decorated green ones, some featuring the interlinked letters N and S. The undercroft or rotunda of St Lazare Métro station is the pièce de résistance of the Nord Sud.

There's a Moorish feel to it. Actually, my friend Julian Pepinster, co-author of Paris Métro Style (Capital Transport publishing) lovingly compares it to a Turkish bath. The rotunda is the
Piccadilly Circus of the Métro, only more subtle, and a standard meeting place for Parisian lovers.

Now head north on Line 13 to Liège. This station was originally called Berlin, but the name was changed in tribute to the sufferings of the Belgian town of Liège in the Great War. In the Eighties, the already ornate tiling was added to by depictions in ceramic of scenes from Liège.