Paris with two young boys
 

Hello All
We are renting an apartment for a week in late june in paris.
I have two young boys 8 and 11 and I am looking for some ideas to do with them.
I am pretty familiar with Paris and fluent in french.
I would appreciate any successful opinons on successful spring in paris boy ideas..
Thanks!
D

Cite des Sciences at Le Villette - absolutely!! My 10 year old twins loved it! Also the sewers - french effluent looks a lot like American, we discovered, and is just as stinky - made their day. Hang in a cafe people watching - it was chilly when we were there two weeks ago, so they loved having a hot chocolate. They loved the boat ride - Vedettes du Pont Neuf, and we caught it just right as the sun was going down. They also loved the Eiffel tower, and we walked up. The Tour Montparnasse, Jardins du Luxembourg, Berthillon for ice cream treats - we went in and had tea and they feasted. They also really loved the day trip to Normandy, with Roel from Victory Tours - http://www.lignerolles.homestead.com/victorytours.html. If I can remember anything else, I'll post it - there are also a couple of books, Paris with Kids, and another, but you probably know that already. We purposely did NOT go to Disneyland, can do that here in the US. One thing that was frustrating was that I tried very hard not to do too much, so as not to overwhelm us and them. I privately stressed over all that we were missing, but they had a ball, and we will go back...

If your boys ar enot too squeemish about ghoulish things, I recommend the catacombs. They are unbelievable - and I would say they are an absolute must for the 11 year old. There is nothing like seeing 30 or so rooms of nothing but human bones - that may not sound appealing to you 'cause you are an adult. But to pre-teens - they'll never stop talking about it.

What my kids loved:

1. Anything that can be climbed to the top of and looked out of- Notre Dame Tower, Arche de Triomphe, top of Sacre Couer, etc. etc.

2. Crepes from the street

3. Playgrounds, esp. the Tuilleries. Great for after the Louvre. You can even pay a euro and jump on a trampoline.

4. The ancient Egypt section of the Louvre.

5. Disneyland

6. Orangina!!!

Also, if they're Harry Potter fans and you're in the neighborhood (near the Pompidou Centre), you can look at Nicholas Flammel's house (the "oldest house in Paris"). He was a real alchemist of old.

We also had a pretty good time in the Picasso museum. I don't know if we were technically appreciating the art, or making fun of the art, but it was fun to look at a painting, guess what it was, then read the title.

One more thing: Make it mandatory that they keep a daily journal. The entries will be priceless in the future. My 8 year old wrote, "Today we visited Sack Rock Coor." I'll save that journal forever!