Eiffel Tower - ilivetotravel's travel log

Ideas for Paris Travel with Pre-Teen Kids

10 March 2014 by Raul 12 Comments

A friend asked me what to do in Paris as she was going with her kids for a week or so. I do not have kids but I was one once and that, coupled with the fact that I have stayed at a Holiday Inn, fully makes me an expert at recommending stuff for kids.

My brain immediately thought “Paris Disney” but I really thought this would be a criminal offense when they have the opportunity to have a much more unique experience – and ilivetotravel is all about experiences. Like chocolate and macarons.

chocolate, macarons, maison du chocolat, Paris, France, food, foodie, photo, Canon EOS Rebel

All sorts of good stuff can be found in Paris. And I am sure kids & adults alike will enjoy!

So here is what I tell my friend to do:

Jardin de Luxembourg – This, the second largest public park in Paris, was part of the Palace that sits right by it. The Palace was built in the early 17^th century and is now the French Senate. The park has many statues and fountains. Maybe your daughter can imagine how it must have felt in the 17^th century being a princess walking around the gardens! And your son may enjoy renting a sailboat to operate in the large fountain while you sit and watch people go by as you enjoy this garden!
The Pantheon – This is likely a quick visit. Some of the most notable French figures are buried here but I don’t think that will impress the kids. However, it was free (at least when I went years ago) and seeing a building with such a unique interior may be interesting for the kids for, at least, 10 minutes. And you, the parent, get to see it!
Go up the Eiffel Tower. I don’t know if the kids will be up to hiking up as far as they let you before you have to take the elevator to reach the top but I know you are fit and can climb it with no issue! While the climb may be more work than the kids want to do, seeing the structure up close as you go up is neat. But, in the end, it’s the view from the top that matters most so, whether you all climb it or not, go up!
Walk up the Arc de Triomphe. OK, if the kids didn’t want to climb the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe is another option available to help you burn the calories of all the delicious pastries you are likely going to be eating (I will be mad if you don’t!). It is deceiving but it is like 14-16 stories high so it is not trivial. The view is not as cool as the one from the Eiffel Tower but you can look down the Champs-Elysées from it and, on the other side, towards the modern arc-shaped building in the distance. Oh, and please use the tunnels that go under the road – don’t attempt to cross the street to get to it!
Visit Montmartre. It is a great place to and walk the narrow and hilly streets (still making you exercise with this plan!). To get up, you can climb the stairs but I will cut your kids some slack and suggest you all ride the little funicular. Once you reach the top, you are rewarded with the massive Sacre Coeur church. And guess what? You can climb it to the top! This one, I think your kids will definitely enjoy and great views of the city to boot!
The narrow and hilly streets of Montmartre – explore!
I feel obliged to suggest a museum that may be good for kids. But I had to do some research on this. I found the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, or the Museum of Hunting and Nature (60, rue des Archives, in the third arrondissement). It is supposed to be interesting for kids mixing animals (dead) and art. Let me know how it is!
Pompidou Center (19, rue Beaubourg, in the fourth arrondissement) has a hands-on children’s area, not sure for what age exactly but it is free for kids so you can get to check out some art under the guise of taking them to a museum that has stuff for them (even if it turns out they are too old for what it has!).
Notre Dame is quite impressive even for kids but it may be a quicker visit with them. On neighboring Ile St. Louis (the island in the river near Notre Dame), there is an ice cream place that is really good. It’s called Berthillon (31 Rue St.-Louis-en-l’Ile). Use that to reward the kids for letting you visit Notre Dame 🙂 And you can have one too.
Take a boat ride in the Seine. Some of the boats offer fancy dinner cruises but there is a batobus (boat bus) that you can take to travel up and down the river –more fun than the metro (for the kids AND you!) and you can use this to see the city from a different perspective.
The Tuileries Garden (right by the Louvre Museum, at the base of the Champs-Elysées almost) is one of the most kid-friendly spots in Paris, and also one of the most beautiful. There are trampolines, a merry go round, etc. A large Egyptian obelisk is located outside on the west side of the park on the Place de la Concorde – could be a unique thing to see from ancient Egypt in Paris.
A view towards the Place de la Concorde and the obelisk. Note Sacre Coeur in the background!
Go into the many places that have phenomenal pastries and other decadent things, like these. For the kids, you know…
- Ladurée – several across town (one near La Madeleine, another on the Champs Elysees, etc.)
- Dalloyau – there is one at 2, pl Edmond Rostand, right across the Jardin de Luxembourg; there are other locations like 101, rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré.
- Angelina (226 rue de Rivoli, right across the Tuileries/Louvre; incredible hot chocolate). As you can see, I have conveniently picked places close to the others I have recommended so you have NO excuse for missing these!
Visit where Raúl lived (24 rue de Tilsitt). OK, it’s a boring building one short block from the Arc de Triomphe. Thinking it over, it may not impress the kids – or you – so only go if you run out of things to do 🙂
Yea, the building I lived in was boring but this is the view from the rooftop terrace!

Enjoy Paris and be sure to let me know what the kids enjoyed – from this list or otherwise!

Filed Under: Europe, France, Good Eats and Drinks Tagged With: Angelina, Arc de Triomphe, Canon EOS Rebel, children, Eiffel Tower, France, French pastries, Jardin de Luxembourg, kids travel, paris, photo, travel, Tuileries

Photo of the Week – My Dear Paris

19 September 2013 by Raul 10 Comments

A dozen years or so ago, I got to live in Paris. I did not get to choose where I lived during those six months as my employer took care of that. The place was nothing special EXCEPT for this one thing… The building had a rooftop terrace with a great view. I assume it is enough to just show it to you and not describe it… Voilà!

Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower, Tour Eiffel, Paris, France, view, vista, Canon EOS Rebel, photo, city, magnificent

Arc de Triomphe and Eiffel Tower

My Everyday in Paris

7 February 2009 by Raul Leave a Comment

I am sure the world does not need another writeup about Paris. But I think we all experience Paris differently so here is my take. It is such a unique place (as are other places like Venice, Rio, Istanbul, etc.) that I never get tired of visiting. At some point I will add to the endless writeups on Paris out there to share my favorite sights. Today, the everyday takes center stage…

Landing in Paris in 1999

I spent 6 months in Paris in 1999 on a work assignment with another group of folks from the U.S.; we had all worked together for a few months prior to going to France and the trip felt like an adventure. It was great to be sharing it with others even if we all didn’t hang out together all the time. At first, most of us lived in the same building near the Arc de Triomphe and with a rooftop terrace with one of the best views in town! Check it out!

Want to better see where this location was? Check THIS out!!!!

Aerial view of the Arc de Triomphe and Charles de Gaulle Etoile

The star marks the spot!!

Once there, most of the time I was working which was crazy and unfortunate and for which I have given myself grief in retrospect, with no real effect on the past (how does that not happen??). However, even with the long days and many days of work, living there was a fantastic experience as I got a taste of life in a one-of-a-kind city. There were some experiences I would rather forget and probably have (… except the work ones!).

The daily life of a non-Parisian in Paris

Of course, being there for 6 months, we got to see a lot of the main sights in our free time. But we also got to live and deal with the mundane. Among the mundane, I can recall going to a hardware store looking for a particular type of lock (with my back-then limited French so I didn’t even know how to say “lock”), phoning locksmiths on behalf of my American colleagues (still not being able to say lock but using the words “cannot close the door” to indicate we needed help), doing laundry at public laundromats (which was quite the experience the first time as we didn’t know where the detergent went in those industrial machines), fighting to be able to buy a monthly carte orange for the metro with the more obtuse clerks, dealing with the throngs of tourists in the summer who made our commute in the metro more painful, etc..

Of course, I have to talk about food

The best part of the everyday (which, actually, was only possible on the weekends – if I didn’t have to work) was having breakfast at the neighborhood cafe (where the bread with butter was more butter with bread) and sit there for a few hours reading a book and watching people. The cafe au lait, of course, was the ever faithful companion of the butter with bread… and it was delicious.

I guess there was the other everyday breakfast routine which I also enjoyed – the one during weekdays. During weekdays we would go to the bakery near our office which offered -how can I say “selling” when these things were glorious- the freshest bakery items. Our everyday routine was to take a break around 9 AM and gather any interested colleagues for the 5 minute walk to the bakery. The baker didn’t speak English but baked goods know no language (I should be a philosopher). Her pain au chocolat (chocolate croissant) was fantastic and, of course, freshly baked. In August, as many other locals do, she took vacation and went to the beach. We had no idea at first what had happened and why the bakery was closed. We figured it out and rejoiced upon her return when, with my limited French, I managed to figure out she had gone with her family to the beach and to tell her we had missed her baked goods. Worthwhile to note, I lost like 10 lbs when I lived in Paris, even with this diet… That’s what walking daily does to you…

I also loved the movie theaters where you could enjoy a beer as you watched a movie (how adult of the French). I mentioned in an earlier entry about Paris about my favorite steak place and my favorite hot chocolate place so I will not repeat here lest this entry become War and Peace length.

Glorious end of the day

For me, and possibly for my friends Troy and Cybil, the “highlight” of the everyday was the end of the day and I don’t just mean leaving work which was probably the runner up of the highlight of the day. We lived in the first ring street around the Arc de Triomphe across from the Belgian Embassy. Our building had a rooftop terrace overlooking the Arc and behind it, further away, was the Eiffel Tower with its sign counting down the days until the year 2000.

At the end of just about every night, we would grab a bottle of cheap local wine (for like $2, perhaps the French version of two-buck Chuck? what would that make it? cinq-franc-Jacques?) and go to the terrace to drink the wine and sit back and take in the view until, 10 seconds before midnight, the counter would begin flickering, and at the stroke of midnight, the counter would change. At that point it was “good night”, “good night”, “see you tomorrow” and off to bed. That was the life.

Eiffel Tower in Paris, France 62 days before the year 2000

Eiffel Tower 62 days before the year 2000; the counter we saw change just about every night!

I have surely left off many aspects of the daily life. If I think of others, I will add as comments but please, if you have your own routines or experiences to share, would love to hear about them. I will add to the Paris category in the future.