Some ideas are so good, you wonder why a team of swots wasn’t commissioned to think them up years ago. Electricity, penicillin, Sky+: just think of the advances humankind could have experienced if we’d come up with them earlier.

There have been some near misses, of course. Take the working lunch. Some bright spark dreamt this up in the 1980s, consigning us in an instant to sandwiches at our desks and longing looks out of the nearest window.

It could all have been so different. If only said spark had taken a second to see whether his first idea really was a keeper, he would have discovered he was actually two letters out from a bona fide belter. Not wORking lunch: wALking lunch.

The trouble with lunch is that a good one can ruin your whole day: all you’re fit for is a bedtime story and a starring role in the new Horlicks advert. But if you combine it with a stroll, you walk off its somnambulant effects.

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People have been promenading post-prandially for years, but the very smartest folk these days are doing their strolling between courses, and employing a guide to add meaning to their meanders. Being a two-footed fan of eating, I was perfectly suited to try this out, and where better for both walking and eating than Paris?

My tour was to be on and around the two natural islands of the central Seine: Ile de la Cité and Ile Saint-Louis. We — my guide, Richelle, and I ­— began by strolling through one of the city’s last remaining flower markets, which smelt rather cloying. According to Richelle, on Sundays it becomes a bird market — imagine the stench you get then.

The sun was out, the birds — had it been a Sunday — would have been singing, and Paris was showing off. We circumnavigated Notre Dame, looking at the sun on its spires from various angles as Richelle pointed out this and that, quenching our thirst at one of Richard Wallace’s water fountains.

Here she explained the Englishman’s philanthropic gift to his adopted city — he wanted the poor to have access to free drinking water (the price of water was high in the 19th century and many were tempted to stick to liquor, as it was cheaper, and cheerier), so funded numerous beautifully designed fountains that he dotted around.

But all of this was merely an aperitif to our first course. The tours use a range of restaurants — you’re asked when you sign up if there’s anything you don’t eat, and from then the menu is a surprise. Each place serves up a special as opposed to something off the à la carte, so you’re getting a genuinely new and different slice of Paris at each stop.

We arrived at Le Buisson Ardent (the burning bush), on Rue Jussieu on the Left Bank, for our first course, a savoury crumble of spinach and blue cheese, with hints of pear, served with a splendid chardonnay from Provence.

It wasn’t something I would have chosen from a menu, but it was interesting, and the zesty white provided a little lightness that the crumble lacked.

The food, though, is really only part of the experience — I was as impressed with the room, with its frescoed walls and floor-to-ceiling windows. And after nearly 45 minutes of strolling, it was nice just to sit, relax, chat and indulge.

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