Paris: small boys in the rain?!
 

Hi - I hope all the super informed people on this site can offer some help...
We're taking a weekend trip to Paris (from the UK) with our boys (4 and 8). Already booked for this weekend and now it looks like rain on Sat and Sun.

What are your best indoor suggestions with small boys? They actually like art, and love history (espec kings, knights, prisons, and all the other things that excite little boys), but they're still small boys with energy that needs to be run off and limited museum attention spans... Help!

There is a lot of running around in the Grande Galerie de l'Evolution at the Museum of Natural History -- it's immense, and kids love to run around all of the old bones and taxidermied extinct species.

Susan, as in the UK, they really cannot accurately predict rain for this weekend; it's Tuesday today. So you may get lucky and have sunny skies after all.
If not, my kids liked the Cite des Science at Parc de la Vilette; particularly the Cite des Enfants; a bit like London Science Museum but more modern. See if you can find Fodor's Around Paris with Kids before you leave; lots of good tips.

The Cite des Sciences at the Parc de la Villette is a great place of r kids to explore, and as they love art, the gardens at teh rodin museum are great, even in the rain.
BUT they predicted that it was going to pour torrents this past weekend, and it did, Sunday, around midnight! A few showers that same afternoon, but nothing dramatic and the early afternoon was fantastic.

Thanks so much for the suggestions. We'll hope the weather reports are wrong (or at least off by a few days).
Susan

My boys were 6 and 8 in Paris, and they loved the catacombs--bring flashlights. They also liked climbing to the top of the Arch de Triomphe (sp?.)Just bring slickers and enjoy the rain! They will think it is fun.

Even when it rains in Paris, it tends to be a very light drizzle. Often it can be ignored. And you really won't know the weather until you get here; predictions are almost useless for anything except the next 12 hours or so.

The Cité des Sciences is very cool, as mentioned. So is the Palais de la Découverte. The Catacombs are spooky. The Musée de l'Armée has lots of military stuff from various periods through history (it's at the Hôtel des Invalides), and you can see giant city models there too. The Géode IMAX theater and Argonaute submarine (both at La Villette, next to the Cité des Sciences) are cool. The aforementioned Museum of Natural History is very interesting, with lots of cool animals and some spooky ones like sharks and squid (but nothing alive, alas!).

That should be more than enough to fill two days or even much longer. It's unlikely that it would rain hard enough to be a problem for two days straight.

Thanks - the reports are now saying rain for sat., not likely for sunday....