sanibel7

Hi- I am new to the boards. I hope you can all help me with your expert advise.
My husband, myself and our 3 sons-16,14 and 12 will be spending 3 or 4 days in Paris and the general area. I would love suggestions of what hotels are good for a family of 5 and places all of you suggest that we MUST visit. Also are there any towns outside of Paris that you think we might enjoy seeing. Coming to Paris vis London. Should we take the Chunnel, boat or fly? Sorry about all the questions.
Thanks for all your help.

ira

Hi sanibel,

In no particular order:

Take the chunnel london to Paris. It takes you city center to city center. You can get discount fares if you book exactly 60 days in advance (you can't book earlier) at
http://www.eurostar.com/dctm/jsp/index.jsp

The Hotel Bonaparte, 61 Rue Bonaparte, in Paris has triple rooms for about 157E and dooubles for about 120E per night w/ Bkfst, AC and ensuite bath.

Tel 33 (0)1 43 26 97 37
FAX 33 (0)1 46 33 57 67

You might want to try them.

Have you looked at the miniguide to Paris at www.fodors.com?

Enjoy your trip.

missypie

Just returned from Paris with a family of 5. We were there 9 days, so we rented a 2 bedroom flat. I thought my trip reports woudl be pretty easy to find in a search, but one in particular is pretty hard to find. For fear of incurring the wrath of others, here are my trip reports:

My husband and I took our three children, ages 13, 11 and 8, to Paris for Spring Break. My husband and I had each been to Paris twice; it was the kids' first trip to Europe.

Here is what they enjoyed:
1. Anything that could be climbed up or down and looked out of: Notre Dame Tower, Sacre Coeur, Arch de Triomphe, Eifel Tower, Centre Pompidou. They didn't complain about steps at all.

2. The public parks. A perfect day with kids is to spend a couple of morning hours at the Louvre, then let the kids play at the Tuilleries. At the Tuilleries there is a place where a child can pay a euro or so and jump on a trampoline (there are 8 of them). Now you'd NEVER see trampolines at a public park in the US, but the kids loved them. They also really enjoyed the "different" playground equipment. The playground at the Tuilleries was the one place that we visited twice...they just HAD to go back on our last day.

They also enjoyed the playground at the Luxembourg Gardens (I think it costs about 2 euro)(you can buy ice cream and hot chocolate nearby) and even the sand box at the Place de Vosges.

If you are traveling with children, please don't cram your day so full of "educational" activies that you can't allow some play time. (It is also "sit on a bench" time for mom and dad, which is nice.)

3. The bakeries and the chocolate bars and the crepes and Oringina.

4. Our 13 year old enjoys anything Ancient Egypt, so he loved the Egyptian stuff at the Louvre (although the other 2 were bored).

5. The 11 year old loved shopping with me for costume jewelry at Monoprix (although the other 2 were bored).

6. The Picasso Museum was probably our smoothest, most enjoyable museum experience. We went when the kids were fresh, we moved fairly quickly and the art is pretty fun to try to figure out.

7. For Harry Potter fans, seek out the Nicholas Flamel house. It's pretty close to the Pompidou Center.

The metro was a bit intimidating for the kids at first (which I'm sure it is for everyone not used to turnstiles, public transportation, etc. ) but I think they felt really grown up once they "mastered" it.

I'm not overly protective, so I didn't mind the kids seeing homeless people sleeping in the metro stations, or topless photos of Josephine Baker, or a major (peaceful) anti-war demonstration (it was the 1st anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq). We travel to broaden our horizons and I think our trip to Paris opened our kids' eyes to a few things.

We required each one to keep a daily journal...they are just terrific and I'm sure we'll save them forever. The 8 year old's phonetic spelling of names ("Today we went to Sack Rockor&quot is priceless.

Before our trip we had a local high school teacher come to our house to tutor us in French. We learned surprisingly little BUT there's nothing that warms the heart of an impatient French waiter like hearing an 8 year old say "Je voudrais le poulet." We always got smiles and complements when our kids attempted French.


We arrived in Paris on a Saturday, left on Sunday of the following week. We went to Disneyland Park on Tuesday and to Walt Disney Studios and Disneyland Park on Thursday. By the time Tuesday rolled around, we had visited the Picasso Museum, the Carnavelet, Pompidou Centre and the Louvre. We felt like we had all earned some non-pressured, uneducational family fun.

The park itself is physically beautiful. The castle is just lovely. Food was a wasteland, but we didn't want to devote 2+ hours to one of their sit down restaurant options. The rides were a lot of fun. The weather was unexpectedly terrific. Note, however, that many many of the rides and attractions are covered, so don't let less than perfect weather stop you.

I will warn that the RER ride out there was harrowing, because we hit the commuter rush...I have never ever been so crushed on public transportation.

I really feel like we got to have two vacations in one and would recommend a trip out to Disneyland to any family visiting Paris.


While in Paris, we tried two of the chain restaurants that are described as "family friendly" in the various guidebooks.

Hippopotumus - I would not recommend this one, although our kids liked it. The decor is fun - portraits of various characters/occupations as hippos, and they give out very very cool swirly balloons. My girls ordered cooked from frozen chicken nuggets, which they liked. BUT, the overall quality of the meal was like going to Denny's, for which we paid around $97 for our family of 5. Not a good value.

Bistro Romaine - We paid virtually the same amount for our meal as at Hippopotamus (still quite expensive for a run of the mill meal)but the food was much better. Although the kids menu pleased our picky, non-adventurous eaters, the rest of us ate decent, French-ish food. I would recommend this one for families with kids.

Overall, the dining experience with kids was more difficult than I thought it would be...at least the menus are posted outside all the restaurants. I thought that we would be able to get roast chicken or steak frites just about anywhere, but that wasn't the case.

The kids loved crepes off the street. Also, the chwarmas in the Latin Quarter were loved by all.

missypie

One more thing: with sons 16, 14 and 12, I'd suggest staying in the Latin Quarter. There is an abundance of inexpensive and plentiful food, lots of students, lots of activity. I think your kids would think you were cool and "with it" if you stayed there.

DebM53711

Your sons will definitely enjoy taking any of the English-speaking guided bicycle tours offered by Fat Tire Bike Tours (see www.fattirebiketours.com for details, prices, tours, and office location in Paris).

My husband and I just returned on Monday, April 12 from a 12-day stay in Paris. Since my husband does not speak French, we looked for some things to do and places to visit where he could converse in English (and give me a break from speaking in French and translating for him!).

We took the night bike tour our first night in Paris (good incentive to stay awake through the first day). The night bike tour is about four hours long and includes a ride up and down the Seine river to see the monuments lit up. It was an absolutely wonderful way to start our trip and to introduce him to the city.

A couple of days later we took the trip to Versailles: loaded our bikes onto the RER, rode from the Versailles train station to the open-air market where we all picked up lunch/picnic supplies, then rode all around the grounds of Versailles: Le Hameau, the Grand and Petit Trianons, to the far end of the manmade reflecting pool where we had lunch viewing the grandeur of Versailles. We then toured the Grand Appartements, rode back to the train station, loaded the bikes back on the train and took the RER back to Paris.

We had such a great time that we took the Giverny tour the next day to see Claude Monet's gardens and house. Fat Tire stores bikes in Vernon (4 km from Giverny) so we didn't have to load bikes onto the train. The group met at the Gare St. Lazare, took the SNCF train to Vernon, picked up our bikes, again purchased lunch/picnic supplies at an open-air market and a nearby boulangerie/patisserie (yum!), and biked on a very nice bike path the 4 km from Vernon into Giverny. Entrance to Monet's garden and house are included in the Fat Tire tour price. We had plenty of time to explore, visit the American Museum of Art in Giverny, sample Normandy's famous cidre at a local cafe. We then rode back into Vernon and visited the local cathedral which has stunning stained glass installed in the 1990s (because the church there was heavily bombed in WWII). The new glass provides an interesting juxtaposition to the antique glass that remains in the church.

The company also offers a daytime bike tour through Paris, and guided tours on Segways (those pogo-stick things on wheels that came out about a year ago), but I can't comment on these tours because we did not try them.

If I seem to be gushing about the bike tours that we took, it is because my husband and I considered them some of the major highlights of our trip. In fact, we rounded out our trip by taking the nighttime bike tour again the night before we flew back to the U.S. A perfect ending to a really nice trip.

In case you are wondering, the bikes are three-speed California beach cruisers, fat tires and all, shocks on the seats, etc. None of the tours have any "serious" hills, although the Versailles trip was the most demanding just because of the length of the ride around the grounds (something like 8,000+ square acres). I think I broke a sweat only once on all four tours. People of all ages were on our tours. The guides were exceptional with kids. Jokes and commentary were tailored to match the group: if kids were present, nothing even slighly raunchy was said. If there were not any kids on the tour, we learned more of the nitty gritty details!

Mainly the guides are in their early to mid twenties. Three of our guides had worked for 2 or more years providing bike tours with Fat Tire in Paris, and one guide admitted he was killing time between an early college graduation and waiting to get into law school in the fall. The guides are intelligent, energetic, and all around good people.

Reservations are required for the Versailles and Giverny trips -- we just called a day ahead and were able to go, but they told us they get quite busy in the summer so you should book ahead. This can be done over the internet. Reservations are NOT required for the day and night Paris tours -- just show up at the south pillar of the Eiffel Tower.

No, I don't get a kick-back or a commission from the company, but maybe I could negotiate something with the owner???

Have fun!
Deb

slbuz

Wow! Thanks for some great ideas and suggestions! We are traveling to Paris in July with three kids.....the food is our biggest concern! Any other ideas about easy eating with kids?

Flyboy

Let them eat cake.

Seriously, you're not going to have a problem because there are tons of little shops selling breads, pastries, cheeses, fruits, meats and all other manner of food that they can choose by looking. There are places to eat at every price level and many menus have English translations. There is fast food. There are grocery stores. There are crepe stands. There are chestnuts roasting on open fires. In short, it's NOT going to be a problem. Paris = Mmmmmmmmm!!!!

BTilke

Take your kids over to the Parc Andre Citroen--where you can picnic on the grass, run about, throw a ball around, etc. (unlike the Luxembourg Gardens, for example, where for the most part, it's a pretty strict keep off the grass policy). Take a ride on the hot air balloon that floats up about 150 meters above the park--a fun experience and short, if any lines.
In the Latin Quarter, near the Place St. Michel, and at the beginning of the rue St. Andre des Arts is a little shop called the Rose de Tunis that makes the BEST frites we've ever had in Paris. You can eat them there or get them to go.
Re hotels or apartments, I don't know if an apartment would be the best choice for just three or four days--that's a toss up. If you do pick an apartment, hopefully it will have two bathrooms...in some ways, I think you'd do better to book a double for yourself and an adjoining triple for the kids.