I did a search on cirque - Paris for the last year, but there doesn't seem to be any discusion. Has anyone here visited circuses in Paris, and what did you think of them?

Merci.

Keith

Not on Fodors but there are several reviews and pictures on http://www.ourparisforum.com. You can read them as a guest

Here's the link to the our paris forum thread

http://www.ourparisforum.com/index.c...1&page=1#53221

There are been several discussions of that on here, perhaps you didn't search correctly. All you have to do is put "cirque AND paris" in the search box and you can find them. Make sure you do not just search the title. One post was a trip report by Nikki where it is even mentioned in the post title (last post date 1/24/10) and the other was a trip report by Susanna (last post date 3/1/09). They don't change that much, I don't usually limit myself to only one year for unusual topics like that. However, not that many people go to them, so you won't find a lot of threads on them.

We went to to the Cirque d'hiver in Paris in Feb. I had read Nikki's trip report and it had sounded fun...and it was a blast. I'm not sure how long it runs but there is a link to it in my trip report. If you click on MY name you will find it easily.

The circus started at 515 in the afternoon, an odd time until I saw all the people with children, then it made sense. I went by myself , I can speak french a little, which doesn't really include circus lingo! I sat up in the first mezzanine on the side, which proved to be a great seat for me. There's no language barrier at a circus!

It's a one ring circus, it had everything, animals, acrobatics, flying trapeze (don't know the plural?). They had a wonderful orchestra, the building is amazing. It was built in the 1800's for the circus. I would go just to be inside the building. The thing that I love about french circuses is that they aren't perfect, people make mistakes. The juggler must have dropped his spools 5 times. He would have been fired in the USA, but there, when he got it right they all cheered him on. There was the llama lady with her trained llama's...who has llama's acting like dogs jumping through hoops in a circus? The flying trapeze lady almost missed three times...and this was their big 150years anniversary of the flying trapeze! It was thrilling!

It's also nice to be at an event will mostly french people and children, to watch them interact and to be a part of something very french. I would go again without hesitation, a really fun evening.