Forget Eiffel Tower and Louvre - this is the most romantic nook of Paris

I was lost in Paris. Wonderfully, happily lost. I was somewhere in the 5th arrondissement, which, embarrassingly, I thought I knew well. On previous visits here I wandered aimlessly, sipping coffee at streetside tables like a local and gazing up at garret balconies, dreaming that I owned one.

On those visits I must have been lucky, stumbling on landmarks that gave me my bearings. Not this time. The quiet streets were pretty as pictures but unfamiliar, and I was out of landmarks. Because I resist using GPS where possible, I was geographically in the dark in the City of Light.

I can blame it on a bird with the most intoxicating call - a kind of super-nightingale, the Edith Piaf of the avian world. It seduced me on Rue de Tournefort and I followed its song down streets and around corners to what I assumed was its home in a lush jardinet or pocket park. It was surely the chicest address a bird can have in Paris.

While I listened to it singing, my phone pinged with a text from my friend and guide, France - I was late for our rendezvous. I described my location and, to my relief, she knew the spot and found me in minutes.

"I see you have discovered one of our jardinets," she said. She told me how these green havens are dotted all over the city, maintained by a bird charity to provide safe spaces for city-dwelling feathered friends.

France works for Club Faune Voyages, a Paris-based tour operator that designs tailor-made holidays in the capital and in stunning locations across the country, many of them off the beaten track. She was giving me a private, local's tour of this stylish corner of Paris.

"Allez! Let's go," she said. We waved au revoir to the song bird and strolled to the Place de l'Estrapade, where exterior shots for the Netflix drama Emily in Paris were filmed. Just beyond it was the Pantheon, the large, muscular 18th-century church commissioned by King Louis XV and dedicated to St Genevieve, Paris's patron saint.

Today the Pantheon is a mausoleum, harbouring the remains of French heroes including the writer Voltaire, painter Rousseau and Louis Braille, who invented the writing system for the visually impaired ... but not St Genevieve herself. She is entombed next door in the much smaller church of Saint-Etienne-du-Mont.

As soon as we arrived at this smaller church's semi-circular steps, I recognised the view. In Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris this is where Owen Wilson's character Gil Pender waits each night for the limousine time-machine which takes him back to the 1920s when the city was an absinthe-fuelled riot of painters and writers.

From the church we walked to the Place de la Contrescarpe, which was buzzing with laughter, conversation and the aroma of moules marinieres issuing from cafes that line the square.

We continued to the symmetrical double staircase on Rue Rollin, then across Rue Monge to the Arenes de Lutece, a Roman amphitheatre constructed in the 1st century CE.

Archaeologists believe the arenes was once big enough to seat 15,000 people who flocked here to watch gladiators fight wild animals ... and each other. Today, it's still a place for drama and combat; as France and I crunched across the gravel, boisterous soccer-playing kids were being told off by men whose petanque game they had disrupted.

We strolled on downhill to Rue Linne, pausing for a sugar-coated palmier at a boulangerie before walking through the Jardin de Plantes (Botanic Gardens) and on to the Rive Gauche (left bank) of the Seine by the Pont d'Austerlitz.

France explained that along this stretch of the riverbank Parisians gather on weekends to dance and, on cue, we found them. One group was a blur of twirling skirts as they danced a salsa. Another was more serious as they strutted their way through a tango, while a third was in the midst of a country and western line dance, which also involved several rather confused dogs. We hurried on before getting roped into any boot-slapping.

As the late afternoon sun warmed the arches of the Pont Saint-Michel bridge, we took a long gaze at Notre Dame, still under reconstruction after the 2019 fire but looking as magnificent as ever.

Then, with rumbling stomachs, we left the river and skipped over the border into the 6th arrondissement for an Aperol Spritz at Italian wine bar Oenosteria and a delicious fish supper round the corner at the charming, booklined Les Editeurs restaurant.

France and I chinked our wine glasses. "After today," she said, "you can finally say you know the 5th arrondissement."

Read more on Explore:

Getting there: Singapore Airlines flies from most major Australian cities to Paris via Singapore, see singaporeair.com

Staying there: Do Paris in style and pick the charming Hotel des Saints Peres in the 6th arrondissement. It has a sophisticated oatmeal-stone facade (designed by Louis XIV's personal architect in 1658), a tranquil leafy courtyard and artworks in every room, see paris-hotel-saints-peres.com

Eating there: Italian wine bar Oenosteria is a charming spot with great food and a sign telling guests 'we do not have wifi: talk to each other'. Sit on the pavement cushions with a glass of wine before dining on delicious ravioli or the mouth-watering tarte du soleil, see oenosteria.fr

Explore more: club-faune.com. The website is in French but email them on tourisme@club-faune.com and they will respond in English.

The writer toured courtesy of Club Faune Voyages.

Pictures: Shutterstock; Matthew Brace