Four Days in Paris with Pre-Teen Boys

Whether you are coming from London on the Eurostar or landing at Charles de Gaulle Airport, day-one anticipates some travel to your hotel and an early afternoon check-in. Once you are settled in at the Hotel de Louvre or other nearby hotel, you can walk past the Louvre, the Arch de Triomphe du Carousel and stroll through the Tuileries Garden, check out the fountains, and you can get your first look at the Eiffel Tower from afar. Have Italian for dinner at Pendino, 6 Rue de l’Échelle, 75001 Paris, a short walk from the Louvre.

On this particular trip, we left breakfast and headed to the Musee d’Armee, a military museum that houses Napolean’s Tomb. I have a military background and my boys seemed interested in the idea. They have enjoyed the Imperial War Museum in London, but to be honest this was not a hit. It was a whole lot of cannons and muskets and toy soldiers. I will say that Napoleon’s Tomb is spectacular and worth a view, but I would skip the museum and head instead to the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, or the Musee de l’Orangerie, all of which did not fit in our itinerary this time.

Whatever you decide on for the morning, try a crepe for lunch at La Creperie, 12 Rue Souflot, 75005 Paris, +33 1 43 54 22 80. For whatever reason, my boys became adventurous eaters on vacation, and they loved crepes. After lunch, check out the Luxembourg Gardens. You can rent a toy sailboat for €5 and sail it on the garden pond. It is by far the best value of anything we did in Paris. From here, you can walk to the Musee de l’Orangerie and pop in to see Monet’s Water Lilies. We had pizza at Chez Pippo, 31 Av. de la Bourdonnais, 75007 Paris, +33 1 73 70 54 50 and then took the Batobus River Boat back to the Louvre.

Day three started with a Duck Boat Tour by Les Canards des Paris. A duck boat, if you don’t know, is a combination bus and boat. The tour leaves from the Champ-de-Mars garden next to the Eiffel Tower, so if you are extra ambitious and haven’t been up the Tower yet, you could book a 9:00 Second Floor ticket for the Eiffel Tower and still make a 10:00 Duck Boat Tour. The Duck Boat Tour is a one-hour bus ride through Paris. The tour guide is engaging and amusing, and you will see the major Paris landmarks like the Little Palace and the Great Palace, the Arc de Triomphe, the Champs-Elysees and the Trocadero. The bus then transforms into a boat, and you see Paris from the Seine.

As you might expect, there are many tourist-trap restaurants around the Eiffel Tower. As I said, my kids love crepes, so Le Crepuscule, 18 Rue Amelie, 75007, Paris, is a good option as is Sandwicherie Comme Chez Vous, 49 Avenue de la Bourdonnais, 75007, Paris. We booked a 2:30 Louvre tour through Paris Muse. We had plenty of time to eat lunch and walk back to the Louvre after the Duck Tour.

If you read my London itinerary, you know that I did a self-guided tour for my kids at the British Museum. Well, let me just say that there is a stark difference between the DIY option and the professionally trained art historian with thousands of hours of experience option. The tour was two hours long, and our tour guide, Amy Huntington, had the kids engaged the whole time. She chose about a dozen exhibits for us to see, including a Sphinx, the Winged Victory, and the Mona Lisa, she had a story for each one, and we learned the history of the building itself as we walked through. It was great.

We opted to start the morning of day four with croissants at Brigat, 6 Rue du Pas de la Mule, 75003 Paris, and then a walk along the Seine. We had planned to visit the Musee D’Orsay, but thought the kids had enough of museums, so we checked out the street vendors, bought some cheese at an outdoor market, and got some souvenirs.

At 1 pm, we went to Maison Fleuret for a croissant making class. A professional pastry chef takes you through the process of making croissants and pain du chocolat. The class takes about two hours, and at the end, you get to eat your creations hot out of the oven, and they were the best chocolate croissants we had the whole trip. Even better, the kids were fully engaged the whole time and still talk about how much fun they had.