Paris: Need something for hubby to do on his own ...
 

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions of something fun to do or see in Paris that I could suggest for my husband when he's on his own during my "shopping day". He's already been to the war museum, spent 7 hours there (I would have died), the last time we were in Paris.

Any "guy" type activities that he could do? Like are there any other military type museums or sights to see? He loves military history, but I don't know that he'd do a repeat.

I hate to leave him alone, but I really need to be focused on my shopping day, LOL!

He loves art, but the problem is that I would want to go see them too, so that would be a bummer if he went without me!

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

The Musee des Arts et Metiers. http://www.arts-et-metiers.net/?lang=ang. My husband enjoyed this while I took our daughter to the Galeries Lafayette fashion show.

I haven't been here, but what about the Cité des sciences et de l'industrie?

http://www.cite-sciences.fr/

the arabic centre or a hamman.

cite de science is great

catacombs

tour paris by segway

cemetry in montparnasse

Ls Catacombes de Paris!

Perhaps he might enjoys a tour of the sewers. Here 's the site:http://europeforvisitors.com/paris/a...ers-museum.htm

I'd recommend the Maritime Museum. My husband enjoyed it a lot, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it too. Many large ship models and paintings of naval encounters are impressively displayed.

http://www.musee-marine.fr/site/en/p...llot_trocadero

HI GP,

He can take the train to Auxerre, Nancy or Strasbourg.

((I))

Segway:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/26opsr

Electric Bike Tour:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/66tb64

Deux Chevaux Tour:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/47tzwn

Segways are great fun and he'll likely have a ball. On the Electric Bike tour he will learn a lot more about Paris and cover a lot of ground. Can't say about the 2CV tour... it's on my list for next time.

Catacombs... saw them in August and rather boring after the first 5 minutes.

Rob

While I do my cooking class in Paris, my husband is doing a 4-hour bike tour with Fat Tire -- they go every day from the south pier of the Eiffel.

I'm thinking about letting him take the ankle monitor off, since he'll be with an escorted group . . .

I second the Segway tour. My husband loved it. (So did I, but you have to sacrifice something for shopping.)

Oh, this is a no-brainer: Le Musee de L'Erotisme...it's all about the art.

Rick Steves has a free "downloadable" Da Vinci Code walking tour. Available as a podcast.

Search out the Arago markers.

Join one of the insider tours that visit the behind the scenes Paris. Some have gone to the working, factory parts of bakeries, chocolateries, etc.

Join a wine tasting, formal or informal.

Leave him at the door of BHV and pick him up there 7 hours later or at a nearby cafe.

Download Rick Steves self-guided podcast walking tour of Historic Paris, Orsay or Louvre.

Follow anyone of the wonderful Degas walks.

Buy him an all day, on-and-off, bus tour ticket.

(Please send this list to my wife and convince her to go shopping without me!)

The Air and Space Museum at Le Bourget (on the same RER line as the one to CDG). It's one of the best collections in the world.

Seconding BHV. There is a huge hardware department in the basement with tools, French house numbers, etc and another hardware/decorating department on (I think) floor 3, full of stuff like cabinet knobs and moldings. At lunch time, the basement is full of guys who really should be going back to work.

When he tears himself away and returns to the surface, he will notice that at lunchtime the park around the Hotel de Ville is packed with pretty girls, and it is only a brief walk to L'As du Felafel. Tell him to have two sandwiches, with everything,they aren't that big.

Then he can wander down into the Marais to the Musee Carnavelet or out to the Musee des Arts et Metiers. If he stops for a glass of wine or biere every now and then to watch the girls go by, he will have spend a pretty terrific day.

there was a thread about a month ago about a similar topic. It derailed into, "should you leave your husband behind to shop or not", but there was some good info in it...

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=35152356

There are some very good brothels in Montmartre

LOL....Happy Travels!

Thanks so much to everyone for the ideas, with the exception of some of the tasteless responses, this has given me a lot of great ideas to research.

I'm hoping to get enough for him to do so that I can shop for 2 days (which is not nearly enough in Paris).

I just read about the iPod tours from Rick Steve's website last night at the bookstore, I'm definitely going to check that out for the Louvre!

Thanks again!

As mentioned above; ignore all that poofy stuff and go to the air and space museum - from montgolfier's first balloons to eff-off big space rockets and everything in between.

Perfect for small boys of all ages.

The porn museum's crap. Well that's what my friend told. My friend. Yes that's it.

The sewers are suprisingly entertaining and interesting (and not somewhere you'd drag a bird)

http://www.paris.org/Musees/Egouts/info.html

I think the air and space museum will be right up his alley, he's an engineer and I could only imagine he could amuse himself in there for at least a few hours! :-)

Is it far from the Ile St. Louis? That's where our home base is.

It's at Le Bourget airport. It's a short (about 30 mins from memory) overground train ride on the RER.

It's near the station.

It really is terrific.

http://www.pilotfriend.com/articles/Lebourget.htm

Where is the war museum? Is this the one at Les Invalides?

the museum in Les Invalides is the National Army Museum. I don't think the frogs have a "war museum" as such as all their caption cards would have to read "Battu par les Allemands" or "Battu par des Anglais", and it would probably get a bit much for them after a while.

Actually the Musee de l'Erotisme is something you two should visit <u>together</u> - it's open late (and isn't &quot;porn&quot;, but perhaps sometimes funny, weird or titillating, er, erotic).

The other person probably thought it was crap because they were hoping for porn.

Damn right. if I want to see statues of willies I'll go to the bloody Prado.

Load of bollocks. That's what it is.

1 - Find him a cafe with plenty of &quot;traffic&quot;.
2 - Ask him to bring along a good book.
3 - Buy him a bottle of his favorite wine.
4 - Buy him a good Cuban cigar or two.
5 - Give him a kiss and tell him you will see him in a couple of hours.

He might enjoy a walking tour. I took one of the Marais last year through Paris Walks (www.paris-walks.com).

Or he might relax and while away the afternoon on a cruise of the St. Martin Canal (http://tinyurl.com/3njlgj) and spend the rest of his &quot;free&quot; day exploring the Parc de la Villette.

&quot;Any &quot;guy&quot; type activities that he could do?&quot;

I haven't been to Paris, but don't they have a red light district?

Uhhhh....yeah....that wasn't exactly what I meant by &quot;guy&quot; activities. You're kidding right? Would you actually suggest that someones husband go to a red light district? Or the other poster that suggested a brothel? Please tell me you are joking and that I just missed the joke, I've been known to do that, you know, miss the joke, as in I find something so blatantly not funny but it was meant to be funny. I'm sure that was the case here, as bizzare of a response as it was. Or maybe if it's not a joke, then we just have different opinions on what it means to be in a good marriage? Yes, that could be it. I'm guessing it was just a joke.....

I second the Arts et Metiers museum suggestion. The building itself is beautiful and the exhibits are actually quite fascinating.

BuckeyeBud: Great suggestion! I read your post in the Louis Vuitton thread too, you're wife must love you! LOL

If you want to have a long shopping day to yourself, he could take a tour of the Caen Peace Museum (Memorial de Caen) and the Normandy Beaches.

He would need to take the train to Caen at about 7 am to join up with tours offered by the museum, which include the museum and the beaches. You're dropped back at the station.

To check for what's available at the time you'll be in France, go to their web site, www.memorial-caen.fr
They offer I think two or three packages, depending on the time of year. The package we looked at was around 65 euros, not including train.

Probably about 12 hours door to door.

I second (or third) the suggestion on the Arts et Metiers museum for your husband. I found it fascinating; my wife less so. She was fighting off a cold the day we went, so when her eyes glazed over she sat herself in the very nice and modern research library with a good book.

The mix of the modern with the old, and the incredible display of machinery kept me enthralled for hours, until guilt at neglecting DW drove me out. Other than that, you would have needed a stout stick to drive me out of the place.

BTW, if you believe the signage, the French invented EVERYTHING!

:-)

<i>He loves art, but the problem is that I would want to go see them too, so that would be a bummer if he went without me!</i>

With all due respect Guilia, if you are spending a day shopping shouldn't he be allowed to go to the museum of his choice? :)

If he sees something really cool (what are the odds of that?!) he can take you back there.

BTW, if my wife were spending a day shopping I could easily spend the day wandering the streets taking pictures.

Of course it was a joke! When we go to a place with a casino, I always post a report about my husband playing &quot;slut machines&quot; with this deliberate typo.

I don't see anything wrong with jokes. I don't see anything wrong with people missing jokes. Pre-travel stress gets the best of us.

We're thinking that he might go back to the Louvre on one of my days about town. We figured that you could spend days in there and we had only planned to make our own &quot;must see&quot; list for the Louvre. This way, he can go back and enjoy any of the hundreds of exhibits that we wont see together. On the 2nd day, if I manage to have one, he's going to choose from some of the other suggestions above. Thanks so much, I'm so excited to get out of here for the elections! It's much more fun to see the coverage overseas! Only 13 more days then Bon Voyage!

FainaAgain; No worries, I often miss the joke, it's mental defect, LOL