First Trip, family of 4 (2 girls, 10 & 17) Land 8/21 6:30AM -from Seattle, Wa. While we do want to see some of the major museums, I expect 1 hour in line and 2 hours in a museum will be plenty & hope to purchase a Paris Pass. We plan on downloading audio tours from RS. I did not make evening plans and hope there is enough flexibility in this schedule not knowing what role jet lag will play and we know we can't see everything but also want time to just enjoy being on vacation. Maybe switch things up by visiting the chocolate museum... Your comments are appreciated!
8/21 SUNDAY 6:30AM ARRIVE CDG (we MIGHT have ONE checked bag-- we are each taking one backpack that will fit in carryon), 9:30AM we can check In- we are staying just behind the Pantheon and about 15 min walk from Luxembourg planning on staying flexible but possibly visit Luxembourg and the Pantheon this day.
8/22 MONDAY AM Notre Dame and St-Chapelle PM visit the Louvre (maybe flip these and do the Louvre in the AM?)
8/23 TUESDAY 9:00 Eiffel Tower we have 10AM TICKETS lunch in the area and then head to Champs d’Elysées & Tuileries Gardens. Maybe the Opera Garnier (my husband and I are Phantom fans)
8/24 WEDNESDAY AM River Seine Boat tour or rent bikes
8/25 THURSDAY DAY TRIP to Versailles
8/26 FRIDAY D’Orsay and Rodin and ?? Latin Quarter, Montmartre? If we haven't been to Luxembourg...
8/27 SATURDAY Fly in the afternoon to Venice
Posted by
Tel Aviv
15784 posts
What time is your "afternoon" flight to Venice? You need to allow enough time to return to your hotel to get your bags and travel to the airport, arriving 2 hours (?) before the flight. You are likely to need to check bags on that flight - carry-on limits are generally lower on European flights than trans-Atlantic ones. It doesn't sound like you'll have time to do more than 1 or 2 of the things you've listed for Friday morning.
Monday is usually a more crowded day at the Louvre because other museums are closed. Consider going Wednesday in the late afternoon/early evening, it's often less crowded then. A cruise on the Seine takes about an hour. "Rent bikes" - to go where?
Posted by
OP
Seattle
83 posts
oops!! Correction (I did edit my original post..).. Leaving Saturday 8/27- not making any plans in Paris besides getting to the airport on time! I'm thinking we may rent bikes in Paris just to ride along the Siene. Thanks for the tip about the boat cruise and maybe changing our dates for the Louvre...
Posted by
7 posts
Definitely visit Louvre first thing in the morning.
On your Tuesday itinerary, you can add in Les Invalides and Musee Rodin after Eiffel Tower since they are all pretty close by.
I didn't see the Marais area in your planning. You can see Places des Vosges (Victor Hugo's house in the corner), Musee Picasso, Musee Canavalet, and Center of Pompidou in this area. My kids enjoyed all of them and they are covered by the Museum pass. Since we have the museum pass, we don't mind just pop in a museum for less than an hour and leave if the kids didn't like them.
Posted by
Denver
799 posts
You've left yourselves plenty of free time, which is good. Keep a list of other places to go, things to see, for when you have completed one activity, have rested at a lovely outdoor cafe, and are ready to do something else.
I'm not sure that you will have to spend one hour in any line to get into anything, if you time things right. Buy tickets for the Musee d'Orsay and the Louvre ahead of time. Both of your daughters will be free, as they are under 18.
Our favorite time to take a Seine Boat tour (we prefer the Vedettes du Pont Neuf) is in the evening, when everything is lit up, particularly the Eiffel Tower. (Unfortunately for us, when we were in Paris at the beginning of June with our 17yo daughter, the water was so high that the boats couldn't fit under the bridges!)
Posted by
Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, USA
14738 posts
I am not as expert as some here, but you mention the Paris Pass. Did you actually mean the Paris Museum Pass? I have always gotten a Museum Pass but I understand from reading and comparing that the Paris Pass is not thought to be a good bargain.
Posted by
Olympia, WA, USA
6713 posts
I think this is an unusually stretched-out itinerary, in contrast to those we often see where people want to cram four or five major sights into a day. It will give you time to appreciate the city itself, the parks, cafes, shops, neighborhoods, and people. I agree that the Louvre is best visited when it opens or on Wednesday or Friday evening when it's open late.
And Pam is right about the passes. Check out the Paris Museum Pass to see whether it makes sense for you. I think it covers all the museums you want to see, plus Ste-Chappelle, Versailles, and Pantheon, but not the Eiffel Tower. But your plan spreads those sights across so many days that the pass may not be cost-effective for you. It might work better if you concentrate the places it covers into the number of days your pass covers (can be 2, 4, or 6 days). The pass allows you to skip all lines except the unavoidable security lines, so it can be a real time-saver in places like Louvre, Orsay, and Versailles. It also allows you to pop into museums to see just one or two things, or just explore, or just use the bathroom (a form of exploring), without having invested in an admission charge.
A couple more places you might consider: the Cluny Museum (medieval art, close to your hotel), and the Conciergerie (prison where Marie Antoinette and many others lived their last days, close to Ste-Chappelle). Also consider the excellent guided Paris Walks, which bring neighborhoods and history to life and couldn't be easier to arrange -- just show up, pay the guide, and enjoy. They have one about chocolate which some on this board rave about (I haven't done it).
Congratulations on giving yourselves time to enjoy this beautiful city. You'll find much else to do in your week.
Posted by
101 posts
This is a nice, relaxed itinerary, and will work fine as you have it written. Your day with the Seine cruise may be too light. You might want to consider some other, less busy museums like the Cluny or the Orangerie to fill it out a little. Somebody else has has already suggested a couple of neighborhood walks. Those are great, and give you the chance to just drop in to some places that may not even be in your guidebook. You could group your museums over fewer days to save a few bucks on your passes, but I wouldn't. Given the total price of your trip, the savings would be negligible. I'd buy six-day passes and keep your trip pace leisurely with plenty of chances to take targets of opportunity. We buy the Paris Museum Pass, usually at the airport TI.