This post focuses on the itinerary we followed during our visit in and around Paris with kids. It’s the first post of a multi-post blog series of our itinerary, tips and tricks from our epic Family adventure to Europe in the spring of 2023.
My husband and I dreamed of visiting Europe together since we met over 15 years ago. For several reasons, finances being the biggest, we didn’t make it to Europe until June 2019 for a last-minute whirlwind trip.
This picture below is us in 2019 seeing the Swiss Alps for the first time!
And we didn’t pay much for that trip since the purpose was for a job interview my husband had in Switzerland. The company paid for my airfare as well.
Although this trip did not lead to a job nor a move across the Atlantic Ocean, it did result in us absolutely falling in love with Switzerland.
Europe Trip 2023
For about 10+ years we have been saving our Delta miles by using our Delta Sky Miles Platinum American Express cards. Another major bonus with these cards is you get an annual BOGO plane ticket. These can be used in the continental U.S. each year (also known as a companion ticket).
We saved enough miles to cover our entire family of five to fly to Europe around the beginning of 2021.
With the pandemic, however, we couldn’t plan anything or consider going until 2022 – which we postponed to 2023. This was because not everything was quite up and running like we would have liked for taking such a massive trip.
I was content with waiting an extra year to make sure everything would be open. And it didn’t hurt to have the kids one year older.
This year our kids are 9, 11 and 12 years old – an excellent age to travel. And what amazing travelers they are! Paris with kids these ages is so great since they can walk long distances (we averaged 15,000+ steps per day), and they have the patience to see museums, albeit for shorter amounts of time, and can have an understanding of other cultures.
We invited my parents to go with us since I knew my mom had wanted to visit Europe for practically her entire life. And, I knew it was extremely unlikely that my parents would go on their own.
So, off we went…the 7 of us to Europe! First stop is Paris!
Flight
We have always had pretty good success flying with Delta and once again we did on this trip. We flew with their partner Air France, since that was the only option.
I highly recommend flying direct if possible. Having an almost eight-hour straight flight is much easier for sleeping versus two flights.
Paris
Note: unbeknown to us, striking/protesting seems to be fairly common in France. Strikes and protests were happening a few weeks before we arrived and at least a few weeks after we returned to the U.S. (They are actually still on-going after a month of returning home.)
The strikes going on this time are due to citizens being unhappy with the government’s decision to move the retirement age from 62 to 64. Thankfully the strikes didn’t affect us too much. We mostly saw garbage piling up in places along with a few peaceful protests and police sirens going on all day, but no violence.
Day 1: Arrived in Paris
- We arrived at 11 am and navigated through the airport fairly easily. Then we found the metro that would take us to the arrondissement where our Airbnb was located.
- Since we couldn’t check in for a few hours, we found a cute cafe for our first European food experience. The adults enjoyed European coffee (meaning small, high-caffeinated and delicious) and everyone enjoyed a French sandwich and/or croissants and dessert.
- After checking into our Airbnb we decided to take a walk around the city since most of us felt decent. We all slept some on the plane but regardless, I think the excitement of finally being in Paris overtook the fatigue.
- We ended up walking to the Eiffel Tower which was about a 45-minute walk from our Airbnb. Unfortunately, we couldn’t go up in it that night since we didn’t have advanced tickets.
- From there, we found a delicious Italian restaurant with fairly reasonable prices for pizza and beer before heading back.
Day 2: Paris – Louvre, Boat Ride, Arch de Triumph
We planned to see the Catacombs this morning, however, when we arrived at the entrance, there was a sign stating it was closed due to the strikes.
It’s highly recommended you purchase tickets ahead of time (which we did) since they often sell out. Thankfully ours will be refunded.
We decided to explore the area nearby and discovered an awesome few blocks of fresh produce and meat markets. And thankfully for this 9-year-old they had fresh French bread everywhere! His diet basically included French bread and fruit the majority of our trip.
Louvre
In the afternoon we visited the Lourve with pre-purchased tickets.
I highly recommend purchasing audio guides for everyone. This made the paintings and artwork come to life for adults and kids alike!
The audio guides included hand-held Nintendo Switch-like devices that also showed a map of where art pieces were located.
We saw a decent amount of the Louvre (for us), including the famous Mona Lisa, and were all quite impressed!
Seine Boat Ride
In the evening we took a one-hour boat cruise up and down the Seine River. There are several boat cruises to choose from. We took this one that was about a 15-minute walk from our Airbnb and it was reasonably priced.
We paid about 17 euros for adults and 10 euros for kids at the entrance. You can also save money and pre-purchase tickets online ahead of time.
It was a great overview of the city as we passed by the various tourist attractions. There was also a guide discussing details about the locations but it was hard to hear on the top/outdoor level. (And no, I wasn’t kidding – French bread was the main staple in Eli’s diet throughout our entire trip 🙂
This is as close as we got to Notre Dame. It’s still closed to the public due to the fire that occured in April 2019.
Arch de Triumph
Dan and I took a quick 15 minute metro ride to see the Arch and then the following day ended up passing right by it on the way to the train station to see the Palace de Versailles so everyone had the chance to see it.
This was as close as we were getting since the traffic was crazy surrounding it.
Day 3: Palace de Versailles, Eiffel Tower
The Palace de Versailles is about a 30-minute train ride outside of the city that’s easily accessible. We took the train to the city of Versailles and then walked 15 minutes to the palace. And the walk was well worth it vs. taking a five-minute bus ride.
We love walking whenever possible since you get to experience so much more!
For example, we found a farmers market along the way where we purchased some fresh tomatoes, bananas and apples along with French bread.
You need to purchase timed-entry tickets for the palace ahead of time and get in line during your scheduled time frame. This visit took easily three-quarters of our day and was well worth it. I highly recommend purchasing the audio guides for an additional 5 Euros – kids and adults all enjoyed it!
They have an enormous garden in the back where you can walk for hours. It was also a great place for the kids to run around and get some energy out after being inside for a few hours.
Tip: And if you can figure it out, start in the King/Queen section of the tour. The entire tour is quite long so I advise seeing the most spectacular rooms first in case you run out of time or patience.
Eiffel Tour
Not surprisingly, the Eiffel Tour was the attraction we were looking forward to the most. And it was well worth seeing it several times during our three-day visit to Paris.
We purchased 7 pm tickets to ride up to the 2nd floor of the Eiffel Tower. You can also purchase cheaper tickets to walk to the 2nd floor which Dan and I would have done except they were sold out.
The top of the Eiffel Tower was shut down while we were there for maintenance. But the view from the 2nd floor was still quite amazing.
This photo was necessary as a reminder for myself. I studied abroad in college in Spain and traveled quite a bit during my four-month semester there.
However, I skipped Paris because I wanted to “save” it for when I could go with my significant other/spouse someday. Well, we finally made it!
Lodging
We stayed within a 10-minute walk from the Lourve which was an amazing location. The Airbnb was rather small but held 7 of us decently. The hallway, for example, was just a bit wider than my husband’s shoulder width!
There were a ton of cute cafes and restaurants all around our Airbnb. Dan and I headed out one night alone and enjoyed delicious regional wine and a few appetizers. And the server made sure we understood that the bread is always free in France (when purchasing other food).
Paris Takeaways
The metro and bus systems were very efficient and decently easy to navigate. We finally really understood the metro by day 3. This is typical for us – right when we understand it, we’re onto the next city!
The food was amazing and reasonably priced. Coffee is delicious and strong, albeit served in much smaller quantities than in the U.S.
And we couldn’t leave Paris without tasting some crepes. This sweet Nutella crepe was amazing and super rich!
People were overall very friendly and helpful to us while ordering food, helping us with the metro and just overall had common courtesy!
We highly recommend Paris with kids. Everyone enjoyed themselves and although we tried making the best use of our time, there is so much more we could have added to our trip if we had a few extra days.
Weather
Overall the weather was great for exploring Paris. It averaged in the 50s for the most part and rained on and off. We brought small umbrellas and rain jackets and always carried one backpack for us to store them in when not in use.
We also used this backpack for snacks and a few water bottles that we could fill up whenever we needed to. I highly recommend this whether or not you’re doing Paris with kids! I also carried this small crossbody purse everywhere containing Euros, a few credit cards and all of our passports. My purse was the perfect size to fit all that I needed but wasn’t too big or heavy.
This is my first post of several for our trip to Europe. So stay tuned as our adventure continued to Germany (Munich) area and a week-long in Switzerland!
I’ll also be dedicating an entire post on general helpful tips, tricks and more on planning a family trip, things we would change and things we can’t wait to do again.