Hi All- Traveling this spring (April) to Paris with my husband and teens (13, 15). We arrive to Gare du Nord ~12:30p on a Wed. Staying in Le Marais. Leaving on Sunday morning. I am trying to balance some must see sites with keeping my teens engaged. We also like time to wander neighborhoods, pop in shops and try different foods along the way. This is not our first city on the trip and so balancing museums in both cities and keeping those to a minimum/ and or ones I think the kids with enjoy overall on the trip. I want feedback if the sites I have grouped together along with the cadence of the days works in a logical, efficient trip. I have spent a lot of time researching to select what we will do, but am open to thoughts/ideas given our priorities. I have not gotten super far with restaurants yet. Trying to nail down the sites and order we do them in first.

Wed:
Arrive & drop bags at hotel
Grab lunch
Get you guide tour: Paris bike tour that includes Le Marais, Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Latin Quarter, Odeon, Luxembourg Gardens
Evening Seine Cruise

Thursday:
Morning: Louvre + Tulleries
Afternoon: Montmartre w Sacré-Cœur

Friday:
Morning: Le Marais start w/ Marche des Enfants Rouges for breakfast
Midday: Rue Cler + lunch
Afternoon: Eiffel Tower + Trucadero
Dinner: @ Francette

Saturday:
Morning: Île de la Cité
Stop by Shakespeare & co
Afternoon: Catacombs (if they are back open) OR Galerie Dior OR go back to somewhere we wanted to spend more time.

Sunday: Depart

Thank you for your time & thoughts!

Thursday is a problem. The Louvre in a morning with something else is really "a little bit of the Louvre" and something else. Of course, seeing all of the Louvre in one go is a fool's errand. So pick some Louvre goals. The big three? (Mona Lisa, Nike of Samothrace, Venus de Milo) Add in maybe the Egyptian stuff, or some other theme, or look for the Easter Island giant head? Let it be the kid's choice. Wandering aimlessly in the Louvre is tiring.

I always recommend as a museum the museum of the Middle Ages (Cluny)
https://www.musee-moyenage.fr/en/ Perhaps on a day when they have a concert of music of the Middle Ages (Saturday?).
and the Rodin Museum (the grounds have the great masterpieces and a nice cafe for lunch.).

Consider a meal at one of the grand brasseries or even a bouillon. (for the experience.)

For a non-museum activity with better views than from the Eifel Tower, try the tethered balloon
https://ballondeparis.com/en/
But only if the weather is nice and not too windy. It's great for kids and children of all ages.

A big ditto re the Rodin museum for a family. And the café as well

We deleted your second/identical thread

My favorite activity in Paris is climbing the spiral staircase at Sacre Coeur to walk along the rooftop. That way you see the Eiffel Tower in the background and the Byzantine architecture of the basilica in the foreground. The best of both worlds.

My second favorite activity is on Saturday, going to Les Puces de St Ouen. It is the big historic flea market of Paris, actually a dozen different markets. If you've ever wanted to buy an 18th Century carriage or a suit of armor, this is your chance. It is visually stunning. My favorite is Marché Vernaison.

I like to enter the Louvre at the Portes des Lions. Few people seem to know about this entrance and it is far less crowded. Also an easy shot to the Italian art. The café on the second floor has a balcony with one of the best views in Paris overlooking the Pyramide du Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe du Louvre, and the carousel..

As long as you are in the Marais, you should stop in at the historic salon du thé, Marriage Frères on r. du Bourg Tibourg. It is something to see. You can buy tea there (Marco Polo is my favorite style) and also you can sit down and eat.

While you are at Marchè des Enfants Rouges, go to the fromagerie next door and ask for a cheese "un peu liquide." It will be something you can't get in the US.

The two big department stores, Galleries Lafayette and Printemps, feature domes that are among the wonders of Paris.

And, depending on the nature of your kids, go to a dépôt-vente (consignment shop). It will be a very different experience over there.

As much as I love the Marché des Enfants Rouges, not sure it's a good bet for breakfast - more a lunch kind of place. There are better places for breakfast in the Marais. Where's your hotel, and will it offer breakfast?

It depends on the interests of you and your family members. Me and my 10-year-old had read (yes, an actual book) The Hunchback of Notre Dame, so he was very eager to visit Notre Dame, especially the towers. And to visit the Pantheon, where Victor Hugo's tomb is (also the Foucault Pendulum there is interesting). Visiting Notre Dame may be a better fit for your Louvre day than going to Montmartre, in terms of locations.

For the Louvre, and this tells you how long ago our first visit with that same 10-year-old was, we did a Teen-Aged Mutant Turtles search; there are pieces by all four "Turtles" in the Louvre.

Another possible museum visit, depending on your interests, is the Musee d'Orsay.

There are many areas in Paris like Rue Cler, in terms of shops, cafes, restaurants, etc. It may make more sense to visit one in a part of the city that you're already in.

The Latin Quarter (7th Arrondisement), is pretty youth-oriented, your teens may enjoy wandering through that part of the city.

Thanks for all of these wonderful suggestions. I will review and consider them all! Yes, we will have a plan in place for the Lourve to see the highlights based on our interest. Planning for ~ 3 hours there with the flexibility to do more or less depending on how the day is going. I do remember enjoying the Rodin Museum when I was there ~15 yrs ago.

The Les Puces de St Ouen sounds great as well. So many places to see and so hard to fit them into 3 days without over scheduling ourselves and leaving time to wander. Thank you for the tip about Rue Cler -- I am sure we will stumble upon some of these streets and can remove it from the itinerary as a stop.

Our hotel is in 4th Arr. and does not include breakfast. I was thinking of doing breakfast there only because of timing and that it sounds like a great place to grab food. Might be able to work it in for a day time meal instead.

I will look more into the Latin Quarter. Would you suggest this over the Marais or Montmartre? I know the bike tour we are going on the first afternoon covers that area. My plan was to spend a couple afternoons/evenings just wandering a couple neighborhoods and had settled on the Marais and Montmartre. Would these be the best to spend our time in? Also, if we were to see an area during the bike tour we wanted to go back and visit, we are always flexible to change up the plan as we go. I just like to have a solid plan from the start to work from.

Thank you for all the tips, they are very helpful and I appreciate everyone's time that have taken to help us out!

Montmartre is certainly a highlight of Paris, but it is also the worst kept secret. You will not be alone. My suggestion is to get there later in the afternoon, climb Sacre Coeur. and then walk around. Early evening it is extraordinarily beautiful and probably the crowds will have died down.

The Marais is the beginnnigs of Paris. An essential neighborhood. Hopefully whatever tour you do will give you a good understanding. If not, you can do a self-guided walking tour using the Michelin Green Guide or there are others on the internet.

I am almost positive there is also a walking tour in the Green Guide for St Germain des Pres.

I don't actually think your plans for Thursday are not feasible but it'll largely depend how you want to spend the day. The Louvre is enormous so you couldn't see everything in a day if you tried and I think a few hours is realistic as it can get tiring after that (that was my experience anyway - after about 4 hours I was a bit checked out). I would definitely recommend going in with a game plan knowing what you'd like to see in each wing. If you're happy with some casual strolling around Montmartre then you can manage both on the same day. You may need to cut the Tuileries depending how you go (for me personally, gardens have never been much of interest anyway).

Be sure to book ahead for Francette to get seats on the open terrace - we booked a month ahead once the calendar opened and were rewarded with a perfect view of the Eiffel Tower from our table - pictured below.

I think your itinerary looks great!

A few notes:
I agree that Marche des Enfants Rouge may not have the best breakfast options. Try one of the many wonderful boulangeries in the Marais, or Benedict in the Marais is also great.

I actually don't think it's a terrible idea to go to Rue Cler if you're planning to spend time near the Eiffel Tower anyway. But if you're looking for another similar (and in my opinion, slightly even more charming) street a bit closer to you, check out Rue Mouffetard in the Latin Quarter. It's a wonderful, (mostly) pedestrian-only street chock full of lovely restaurants, boutiques, a quintessential Parisian plaza called Place de la Contrescarpe, and my favorite savory crepes in the city at Au P'tit Grec - they are huge and full of lots of gooey cheese! (Btw, someone above said the Latin Quarter is in the 7th arrondissement, but it's actually in the 5th! Don't want you to get confused.) Another option for a pedestrian (ish) street is Rue Montorgeuil, which is closer to the Marais - and it's where the famous Stohrer patisserie can be found.

Hmm, I hate to add to your museum list but feel I must mention the L'Orangerie with its stunning Monet waterlilies paintings if your family is at all interested in Impressionist art. The museum is small and doesn't take long to visit but was my favorite as a 14 year old and continues to be more than 50 years later!

The Eiffel Tower is open at night and its lights sparkle for 5 minutes every hour on the hour which is fun to see. We prefer going up it at night as it is typically less crowded and the sparkling lights are pretty magical.

You don't really see the sparkly lights if you are up the Tower. You need to be on the ground and from at least a bit of distance to get the proper effect.

I found a nighttime visit to be dismal since you can't see much. The best thing about a nighttime visit is that you don't waste precious daytime hours if you feel compelled to go up. It is indeed far less crowded, though I'd say there's a good reason for that.

Well, as you can see, everyone has many thoughts about what to do in Paris. My daughter and I preferred the Eiffel Tower at night (we've done both daytime and nighttime visits) but to each their own.

I think you did pretty well! Your schedule is very flexible. I second so much of what shelemm said.

There are many rooftop views of Paris,as others have said. I think we may have done all of them, from department stores to the Notre Dame towers, to the Montparnasse Tower, to the Pantheon rooftop*. Pick your poison. But the Sacre Coeur roof thing was so cool. Just don't do it as we did--in the middle of a thunderstorm. The views of lightning over the Eiffel Tower against a darkening sky would have been much more enjoyable had we not been in danger of being fried and slipping off it. If weather is good--GO!

Similarly, I always think being near the Eiffel Tower at NIGHT is MAGIC. And going up it isn't as magical as just walking towards it as it sparkles. We usually spend one night in the 7th for dinner each trip and walk TOWARDS the tower on Rue Dominique. So sure, go up during the day if that works for you; you can always go back and enjoy it from the ground at night too. It's such a great "last night" thing.

Another thing that's fun for teens is to set them off on their own. Even before Google Maps and even when our youngest was younger than 13, we'd hand our girls a Streetwise Map and Metro tix and say something like, "We'll meet you at the Musee d'Orsay by the lion statue (the Antoine-Louis Baryre)." They loved figuring out how to get there, and they thought they were hot stuff. (Of course, I always, as a matter of routine,had put an index card of our hotel and our contact information in every possible pocket of their clothing).

I enjoy the Musee de Cluny, but my girls were never as big a fans of it as I was. For some reason, none of us are fans of the Rodin either. Can't explain why. We love the Picasso museum (even though we are not Picasso fans per se) which would work for your Marais location, and probably our favorite little gem of a museum is the Jacquemart Andre, which is just too out of the way for this trip of yours.

Have fun!

AZ

*I should explain that we were in Paris at least two to three times a year for almost a decade. Thanks to my poor husband's frequent flyer miles (he flew practically every weekday for work) the girls and I got to spend a lot of time in Paris starting when the youngest was in elementary school all the way through high school. It was almost as easy (and so much cheaper then) to go to Paris for a long weekend than it was to visit Disney World or New York, etc. it's not an accident that my youngest would later spend her year abroad there living in a tiny studio apartment on Rue de Grenelle (thank goodness Airbnb did not exist then).

Seamus and Fleur de Lis have both accurately summarized Marche des Enfants Rouge. We were there again this past November and were reminded that the demographic leans heavily towards, I dunno, hipsters and like that. It definitely is not where we would go for breakfast cos the offerings are much more lunch/supper-oriented (Msr. Seamus c'est correcte). It can be loud, crowded and a bit hectic. Great for say communal tajine i.e. dining at picnic tables next to others plus a cat or two. Also great for those in search of chocolate, as one of the city's best is right outside the far exit.

We will soon be at a rental near Fleur de Lis' Rue Mouffe as mentioned above. Might add that the nexus there could be: Place Monge market in addition to the obvious rue Mouffe one; pl. Contrescarpe; the Pantheon; the Mosque (je propose its superb cafe plus hammam for females only); les Arenes Roman arena remains (kids kick soccer balls); Jardin des Plantes (check out the oh-so colorful fossilized tree trunk) and nearby Institut de Monde Arabe (VG views). From the latter one may take one of Travel's Great Walks: from that Institut across to say, Pont Neuf (riverside splendor, N. Dame, the bouquinistes, buskers and more). Crossing that latter bridge, one could treat close-by Place Dauphine as a meal destination, with a number of cafes to choose from.

Speaking of cafes, the restaurant that I always trot out for these discussions is the coop 'Le Temps des Cerises' (no reservations). Located in the funky boho 13e Buttes aux Cailles, that place features some of the best home-style cooking in all of Paris. Bonus: that neighborhood is a hub for interesting street art. *do not confuse this eatery with the same-named chi chi cafe up in Le Marais. I've no idea how the latter got away with such copying.
Honorable Mention for old-school traditional meals: equally casual Chez Nennesse in Le Marais. Sweetmeats, historical desserts and a traditional wood stove in the middle of the room.
C'est tous.

'I have no fire on me...'
(Max Webster)
I am done. The end.