Paris in 3 days with kids
Always dreamt about visiting Paris with kids but wondering if the trip would be too stressfull for the troupe?
We are a family of 5 (with 3 girls of 7 and 4 years old, yes twins and all girls 😅) and we survived and enjoyed to the fullest 3 days in Paris and here I will guide you through the “how” …
We were located in the area of “La Villette” of Paris, which is the best one for kids and very well connected with all the metro stations of Paris through the stop “Ourcq”.
This is a great area for kids as it is full of amazing parcs and fun activities, including:
- The city of kids
- The city of science and industry
- The public library for both kids and adults
- A small acquarium
- A series of ateliers for kids of arts/coding, etc…
- Paris plage and several boats running trips on the canal until the “Pantin” area
- Philarmonic of Paris
We spent a whole day in this area and the kids enjoyed it a lot. You can decide to visit the area from 2 to 7 years old or from 5 to 12 years old.
We visited the first one with 4 kids from 4 to 7 years old and they loved it! Activities spans from:
- ateliers of 5 senses
- playground with a small boat to learn how to pilot it
- play with water and air balls
- learn how to deal with emotions
- a wood labirinth
All these activities hel kids to understand science by playing with it and it worked very well!
The visit to the city of kids lasts around 1.5/2 hours depending on the interest and age of your kids.
After the visit we saw very quickly the small acquarium on the -1 floor and then went to the amazing public library. The upper floor is dedicated to kids of all ages. Everyone can access the library and read books, learn how to use a computer or play with a big wood “Guess who” toy made with images and descriptions of the lives of famous women in history.
We spent the rest of the day hanging around in the parc of “La Villette”, discovering the different playgrounds and we visited the top of the “Philharmonie de Paris” with a wonderful view on the whole city, including the Tour Eiffel and Montmartre. On the ground floor of the building there are also playgrounds for kids. By moving the different toys more or less, a different sound and melody is created by the kids.
The second day was dedicated to something fun for adults as well 😂 we visited the Marmottan Museum, the biggest collection of Monet’s painting ever. As one of our kid is in love with painting, we enjoyed it a lot. The museum is rather small, with 3 floors of paintings, but only 1 in total presenting Monet’s ones. However, the visit (around 1 hour) is very interesting and the paintings are beautiful to be seen in real life.
After the artistic visit, we enjoyed a few hours in the “Jardin du Ranelagh”, which is perfect for kids, with 2 playgrounds made by wood. We made a nice pic nic and we moved to the next stop.
➡️ Curiosity: this neighbourhood is lovely, full of nice buildings and you can see the Tour Eiffel very close and big from the metro stop.
We spent the afternoon in the Parc of Buttes Chaumont, the greenest parc of Paris.
This is located in th XIX arrondissement, very close to “La Villette”. Despite there are only 2 small playgrounds, the parc is beautiful and full of history.
Buttes Chaumont is in fact one of the city's largest green spaces, with landscaped slopes hiding grottoes, waterfalls, a lake and even an island topped with a temple to Sibylle. Once a gypsum quarry and rubbish dump, it was given its present form by Baron Haussmann in time for the opening of the 1867 Exposition Universelle.
We closed the day eating an amazing pizza at “Simonetta” close to Paris Plage and La Villette area.
In the third and last day, we visited the Tour Eiffel, Montmartre, Louvre and the Tuileries Gardens.
We decided not to enter inside the buildings, but just to make a walking tour around these places as it was super full of people and it would have been too tough for the kids. We promised ourselves to come back one day in the future and to let them enjoy also from the inside.
Kids loved the most the Tour Eiffel of course and the Tuileries Garden.
➡️ An interesting thing is that from the Garden you can access the underground and visit the Louvre pyramid reversed and an exposition of a lighted wall, as well as shops. We discovered it by chance as it rained too much to walk outside.
What we disliked the most about this trip was “Place du Tertre” where all the artists are standing in Montmartre to find clients to paint. We found it too busy and touristic, as well as the “Mur des je t’aime”, full of influencer but nothing special to see.
The last stop was a fantastic lunch at “Le Coq & Fils”, a small and fancy restaurant where we ate the best poultry ever, approved also by the kids!
The restaurant was opened by the 3 starred Michelen Chef Antoine Westermann in 2012 and offers only sustainable and well treated ingredients. The prices are not too high compared to the quality of the food. A very nice discover, again thanks to the strong rain, we closed the trip in a very good way ☺️
A special thank to our friends Sara, Francesco and Elio for all the great local tips and for your warm hospitality ❤️
We closed the trip with 45 kilometres walked in 3 days, the whole family loved it and we are now ready to the next trip: 2 days in Disneyland Paris 😊
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