How long??
 

Planning trip to Paris next summer (2017) with 17yr old and 9 yr old. Possibly also doing Amsterdam. Would like to know how many days to see the big attractions. Also how much time to spend at each attraction (ie; how long can one expect to spend at the Eifel Tower?)

Thank you

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It isn't just how much time you spend there but how long it takes you to get there, and that depends on where you start.

If you need a rule of thumb, think an average person who doesn't sleep in can see one major attraction in the morning and one major and one minor attraction in the afternoon.

Of course "average", "major", and "minor" attractions are pretty loose terms. So let's narrow them.

An average person gets out of their hotel by 9:00 AM already having had breakfast and gets to the Major Site when it opens at 10. So let's say the morning Major Site is the Picasso Museum. After two hours in the museum, you have lunch in the neighborhood. By 1:30, you hit Major Site 2, maybe the Carnavalet Museum. At 3:30, you leave and walk to Minor Site, Place des Vosges. You pick up some drinks on the way, relax a bit in the green, maybe join the last group going into the Victor Hugo House. When you come out, you walk around the Place window shopping under the Colonnades, come out into the street to catch the bus home.

In the northern Marais, one Major Site might be the Musee des Arts et Metiers (inventions and engineering), the Minor Site might be the Marche des Enfants Rouges, where you could eat also lunch. Maybe from there, walk to Republique, another Major Site.

These are fairly obscure examples, but it works. If you let each kid pick one of the major sites daily, everybody gets to buy in.

There are wonderful things to see in the evening, notably a Seine cruise in the dark while the Eiffel Tower sparkles. Or a walk along Notre Dame after dark, when it is beautifully lighted.

How long does it take to do the Eiffel Tower. Well, I've never been up in many trips to Paris. It just doesn't appeal. But I have been to the bottom and watched the crowds several times. As a Major Site, I might give the people watching and studying the structure an hour and a half, but then I would walk across the bridge to Trocadero (20 minutes?), a minor site except for the museums inside but the absolute best place to take pictures of the Eiffel, so I might hang out at least an hour.

Your mileage may vary.

perkie: You have several responses on your other thread http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...-amsterdam.cfm

To find all your threads, click on your screen name.

Get a copy of the Michelin green guide for each city. It is vey detailed and will not only rate the sights by number of stars but give you an idea of how long it will take to actually see the site.

If you have the time allocate 7 days in Paris and 3 days in Amsterdam. You can do Paris in 5 days but you will be missing out on a lot and also not giving yourself time to linger in cafes.

most guide books give itineraries for a set number of days - they could give you an idea of how long you would need to see the major sites you are interested in.

But as a starting point, if you have 14 days, 8 in Paris and 6 in Amsterdam would probably be about right [an extra day for recovering from jet lag, and plenty of time for side-trips in Amsterdam].

in that time you might think of going to Bruges in between Paris and Amsterdam to have an experience of a smaller place.