Mike Laycock became a cosseted culture vulture on a capital weekend break.

STEVEN Spielberg, Marlon Brando, Liz Taylor, Charlton Heston, Richard Dreyfuss... the list of celebrities is almost endless, attracted by the discreet hospitality and a location in Piccadilly, just minutes from the West End theatres.

And now my wife and I were also going to the Athenaeum Hotel and Apartments for a weekend break linked to Paris: Capital Of The Arts, a new exhibition of 20th century Parisian art at the nearby Royal Academy of the Arts.

It was a weekend of luxury and comfort, fittingly starting with first class travel to London on GNER's speedy and efficient service (certainly on this occasion). Plenty of leg room and a chance to read the papers in peace, with endless cups of complimentary coffee, tea and biscuits.

The cosseting continued when our taxi arrived at the hotel and the uniformed doorman took our bags and led us inside to the smart foyer. Another member of staff took the luggage and led us to our room on the fourth floor.

The room was ornately furnished with armchairs, a king-sized bed, TV with all the satellite channels and a view over Green Park (somewhere out of sight beyond the trees was Buckingham Palace). Between us and the park was a busy dual carriageway, but the windows were double (or was it triple?) glazed to muffle out most of the traffic noise. The en suite bathroom was all marble and mirrors.

The Athenaeum began life as a private club in the 1920s before being re-built as a luxury apartment block. It was refurbished before becoming a hotel in the 1970s, and then underwent another £10 million refurbishment in 1994. Our package, which normally costs £90 per person, included a full English breakfast of bacon, sausages, tomatoes, mushrooms, scrambled eggs and fried bread in the restaurant, and then tickets to the exhibition at the Royal Academy, a five-minute walk down Piccadilly. Sadly, our wet winter had taken hold and we arrived at the Academy soaked through.

The exhibition, which runs until April 12, features the great art from Paris between 1900 and the student riots of 1968, including the Nazi occupation and subsequent liberation. This was a period when the city was considered the world capital of the arts, and a magnet for artists from all over the world.

There are more than 280 paintings and sculptures by such artistic legends as Picasso, Salvador Dali, Matisse and Modigliani.

Some of the works are clearly inspired and inspirational, some are thought provoking and curious, while others - speaking as something of a reactionary who reckons art has gone downhill since the Impressionists put away their brushes - were wacky, tacky or simply taking the Mick. For example, Black Square by Ellsworth Kelly, 1953, is basically a black painted square, nothing more and nothing less. But taken as a whole, the exhibition is well worth a visit, and it was drawing the crowds on the Saturday when we looked round.

For a taste of more traditional art, we splashed through the still torrential rain to the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square and the adjacent National Portrait Gallery. In the former gallery were some fantastic paintings by some of my old Impressionist heroes, including Renoir and Seurat. In the latter gallery, we were intrigued by the portraits of contemporary celebrities, writers and politicians.

We had an afternoon free before it was time to head back to Kings Cross, and it was our big chance to see a West End musical that we have longed to visit for many years - Les Miserables at the Palace Theatre in nearby Shaftesbury Avenue (everything was nearby on this break).

Les Mis, set in 19th century revolutionary France, continued the Parisian theme of the weekend. It deservedly won a standing ovation.

We emerged to find it raining even harder, and scuttled back through the puddles to the hotel to fetch our luggage. The doorman was ready for us, somehow remembering my name as he greeted us. He had hailed us a taxi before we had even picked up our bags. This hotel had been an excellent base for a stay in London, right up to our departure. Simply capital.

Updated: 14:07 Saturday, February 09, 2002