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Paris trip

hi,

My husband, my 13 year old daughter and I are going to Paris in mid June. We will be there for 3 days. My husband is not a museum lover, we are planning to go to the Eiffel tower. What else can we do?

Thanks for your help

Posted by
9 posts

The first question I would ask is what you like to do as a family. I took my 9 year old son and 13 year old daughter a few years ago and they were both bored by museums too. My daughter like discount shopping so we went to the flea markets and my son liked parks so we walked around a lot of nice places including the elevated train rail that was converted into a park. Both liked when we rented a golf cart at Versailles and were disappointed we didn't go to Disneyland Paris. There are a lot of different activities such as cooking classes and simply walking around the city to get into the spirit of what makes Paris special.

Posted by
34 posts

that sounds good. My daughter loves the shopping to so that wouldnt' be a bad idea. where are those flea markets located and the elevated train??

Posted by
4724 posts

A river cruise is always nice. We've take several with different companies, but Les Vedettes du Pont Neuf is the one we enjoyed the most. Don't bother getting tickets ahead because you never know what the weather will do. Just show up. You don't save that much on the advanced tickets anyway. Be sure to do it a night since the lights of the city are super -- especially the Eifel Tower.

Posted by
7123 posts

See the outside & interior of the Opera House, walk through the Luxembourg Garden (pick up a gelato, too), see Notre Dame, ride the Metro up to the Sacre Coeur neighborhood and walk around that area (look it up on internet for ideas).

Posted by
9403 posts

You can also do a Mike’s Bike Tour/Fat Tire tour (same company), they offer many. Renting bikes on your own at Versailles is very fun and affordable. Going to the top of the Arc de Triomphe is way fun.
Rick Steves has a chapter on Paris with kids in his Paris guidebook that would be very helpful to you.

Been taking my son to Paris since he was 11 yrs old and he loved and still loves (28 now) absolutely everything... from small to big. Cafés, bakeries, mêtro, street entertainers on pedestrian bridge behind Notre Dame, movies on the Champs Elysées (great theaters), Hop On Hop Off open top double decker bus tours, parks, playgrounds, boat cruises, all the tourist sites, flea markets, bike rides, shopping, the language, the culture, the food, the wonderful people. He also loved all the day trips and train rides to get there... Vaux-le-Vicomte chateau, Monet’s house in Giverny, Fontainebleau, Versailles, Malmaison (where Josephine & Napoleon lived), Alexander Dumas’ chateau in St Germain-en-Laye where he wrote all his Three Muskateers books, I could go on and on. There are endless things for kids and adults to enjoy in Paris.

Posted by
473 posts

Fat Tire Bike Tours are very fun ~ when we took our daughters as teenagers they both enjoyed them very much.

Posted by
7175 posts

OK, art and museums may not be your thing.
So what is then ?
•History
•Architecture
•Churches
•Iconic attractions
•Shopping
•Food & wine
•Local activities

Posted by
9403 posts
Posted by
702 posts

Lots of great ideas here but you can't go wrong buying a good guidebook for Paris. Rick's is good, also Lonely Planet is good. Then you can see these & other ideas then talk to your family and get their input as to what they want to see & do. Have fun & enjoy my favorite city in the world!

Posted by
4020 posts

A newbie teen might be engaged by the sewer tour at the sewer museum. Yes, there's an 'iicck' factor; don't teens still like that? Anyhow it is only mildly fragrant and displays some ingenious mechanical ideas for its time. Plus you get to talk about Les Miserables. It has odd closing days, Thursday and Friday.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_sewers

https://ca.images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=Az_6xdk.D3VaRHsAoSbtFAx.?p=%2Bparis+and+%2Begout&ei=UTF-8&fr=crmas&imgty=photo&fr2=p%3As%2Cv%3Ai

Posted by
5697 posts

Your husband may not like art museums -- how about war museums ? Napoleon's tomb and des Invalides has lots of history and uniforms and arms.

Posted by
1362 posts

Yes, the Army Museum. I really enjoyed the Medieval & WWI displays. Next year I plan on seeing the miniature models section within the Army Museum, Musee des Plans-Reliefs. Did not find out about that until about a week ago.

Posted by
768 posts

I took each of my kids to Paris when they were teens. Here's what they liked:

Catacombs

Sewer Tour

flea markets

View from Arc de Triomphe

shopping in supermarkets ("markets" in Google Maps)
Chez Janou restaurant with "all you can eat" Choc. Mousse (very French, just take along Google Translate on your cell phone with French pre-downloaded)

Free tours (Google Paris free tours)

climbing Notre Dame Bell Tower

having portrait drawn by artists outside Pompidou Museum of Modern Art (bargain them down by a third or more)

City of Science Museum at Metro stop Porte de la Villette where there is a rotating room where you can throw a ball and watch it curve 90 degrees