Children looking at a map by the Eiffel Tower

Things to do in Paris With Kids

By <a href="#author-bio">Stuart Bak</a>
By Stuart Bak

An efficient public transport system, a relatively compact center and oodles of parks, museums and family friendly hotels and restaurants make Paris a great choice for a city break with your little adventurers. We’ve put together a selection of our favorite things to do in Paris with kids, from climbing the Eiffel Tower to magic shows beneath the streets.

Park life

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With over 400 green spaces, you’re never very far from a park in Paris. Many are close to major attractions like the Louvre and Eiffel Tower, providing ideal opportunities to break up your sightseeing itinerary with some ultra-kid-friendly activities.

The Jardin du Luxembourg’s central location is far from being its only draw. Over 56 acres kids can enjoy pony rides, puppet shows and one of the city’s biggest playgrounds. The Grand Bassin lake in front of the Palais de Luxembourg is particularly charming. Here, kids can rent old-fashioned toy wooden sailing boats and push them out into the water. On Sundays, members of the Luxembourg Nautical Club add their eclectic selection of (silent) motor boats, sailing vessels and submarines to the mix.

On the banks of the Seine, the Jardin des Plantes is home to the Ménagerie – one of the oldest zoos in the world. Its 600+ inhabitants include ferociously cute red pandas and endangered species such as snow leopards and giant Aldabra tortoises. Wander the wooded pathways to spot the animals in their log-cabin homes. If the Ménagerie’s critters are feeling particularly camera-shy during your visit, there's always the Grande Galerie de l’Evolution, a natural history museum on the edge of the park, where taxidermy beasts share space with giant dinosaur fossils, meteorites and thousands of plant species.

Parc des Buttes-Chaumont is a little off the beaten track in the 19th arrondissement, but well worth the pilgrimage. Less crowded than the city center parks, it contains 60+ acres of hilly terrain and woodland that’s perfect for little explorers. Kids can feed the ducks in the pond, enjoy a picnic with superb city views, run the 63-meter length of the Eiffel-designed suspension bridge and discover the secret grotto with its magical (albeit artificial) waterfall.

Natural highs

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Kids love to climb, right? Great news! Paris is full of opportunities for natural highs that will keep them entertained. Why take the lift all the way up the Eiffel Tower when there’s a perfectly good set of stairs that goes all the way up to the second floor? That’s 674 steps in total: a dream come true for energetic kids everywhere. Footsore parents will be relieved to learn there’s a glass elevator to shoot you the rest of the way up to the observation deck on level three. And a bar when you get there.

The Arc de Triomphe is a little more forgiving, with a mere 284 steps to reach the summit. Up here, kids can get snap-happy with arguably some of the finest photo opportunities in Paris, including uninterrupted views down the broad Champs-Élysées boulevard to Place de la Concorde. There are also great views of the Eiffel Tower and the Sacré-Cœur basilica, balanced like a little fondant-icing decoration atop Montmartre.

To reach the basilica, take the easy way up: Montmartre’s funicular railway takes you all the way to the top in just 90 seconds and your kids will love it! Once at the top, grab a well-earned chocolate crêpe and sit on the steps watching the street entertainers and admiring the views. Kids can also pick up a unique souvenir here: a caricature of themselves by a local portrait artist. Also recommended is a short tour of Montmartre’s atmospheric streets aboard the adorable petit train: kids love it and it’s an absolute godsend for foot-weary parents.

Museums and shops

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Paris has a number of dedicated children’s museums. Musée de la Magie is a mesmerizing treasure trove of magic and illusion in the Marais district. It's set in the cellars of the Marquis de Sade’s former home, but don’t let that put you off! Kids will love the weird and wonderful exhibits and free magic show. Entry also includes access to the adjacent Musée des Automates, with its fascinating (and occasionally creepy) collection of around 250 antique automated puppets and toys.

The Cité des Sciences (CSI) is Europe’s biggest science museum and counts a planetarium, an IMAX theater, and even a submarine among its many attractions. Here, kids from as young as four or five years old can get involved in fun interactive exhibits and play areas across six thematic zones. You could easily spend a day here and in the surrounding Parc de la Villette. This sprawling playground has dozens of sculptures and themed gardens to explore, as well as open-air cinema and live music in the summer months.

The higgledy-piggledy high shelves and Harry Potter-esque interiors of iconic English-language bookstore Shakespeare and Company will appeal to little bookworms everywhere. A huge and eclectic selection of books for kids, teenagers and young adults means there’s something for everyone here. Continue the, ahem, educational theme with a trip to Le Bonbon au Palais, a classroom-themed candy store in the 5th arrondissement. Here, presented in apothecary-style jars, are tempting French candies in all shapes, sizes, colors and flavors. Children will be like, well, kids in a candy shop. It’s a guaranteed hit and may just provide the sugar boost everyone requires to get back to the hotel without a toddler-style meltdown.

Save on things to do in Paris with kids

Save on admission to Paris attractions with Go City. Check out @GoCity on Instagram and Facebook for the latest top tips and attraction info.

Stuart Bak
Stuart Bak
Freelance travel writer

Stu caught the travel bug at an early age, thanks to childhood road trips to the south of France squeezed into the back of a Ford Cortina with two brothers and a Sony Walkman. Now a freelance writer living on the Norfolk coast, Stu has produced content for travel giants including Frommer’s, British Airways, Expedia, Mr & Mrs Smith, and now Go City. His most memorable travel experiences include drinking kava with the locals in Fiji and pranging a taxi driver’s car in the Honduran capital.

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Best Art Galleries in Paris

The birthplace of Impressionism, Paris is a veritable paradise for artists and art lovers. It’s a city that has inspired and produced a disproportionate number of household names over the centuries – think Matisse, Modigliani, Manet and Toulouse-Lautrec. It’s no surprise then that Paris is where you’ll find some of the world’s finest galleries and museums as well as, of course, arguably the most recognizable (and certainly the most visited) painting on the planet. Read on to be inspired by our selection of some of the best art galleries in Paris. The Big Hitters The Louvre Museum Of course, no visit to Paris would be complete without passing through the Louvre’s iconic glass pyramid and entering its multi-level labyrinth of galleries, corridors, stairways and escalators. With nearly 40,000 works of art on display at any given time, covering painting, sculpture, antiquities and much more, the Louvre is the world’s most-visited museum and contains many of its greatest and most famous artistic treasures. Come for the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo, stay for the ancient Great Sphinx of Tanis, French crown jewels and the decadent pastries and fancies served in the museum’s Café Richelieu Angelina, where the Mont Blanc – a grand confection of meringue, whipped cream and chocolate shavings – is something of a work of art in itself. Musée d’Orsay More compact, easier to navigate and significantly less crowded than the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay’s collection of 19th and 20th-century art packs a real punch. Here, in what used to be the Gare d’Orsay train station, you can view world-class pieces including Van Gogh’s mesmerizing Starry Night over the Rhône and Self Portrait, perhaps the greatest selfie of them all. French Impressionism and Post-Impressionism is particularly well represented here, with a great variety of Toulouse-Lautrec’s Moulin Rouge-inspired pieces and many Monet masterpieces, including one from his Water Lilies series. Don’t miss the original station clock, which hangs in the impressive main hall, and head to fifth-floor Café Campana by the Impressionist Gallery, where a giant clock-face window affords enchanting views across the Seine to the Louvre and Sacré-Cœur Basilica. Musée de Montmartre Montmartre’s cobbled streets, bohemian vibe and awe-inspiring views across Paris have attracted a great many artists over the years, among them – deep breath – Renoir, Manet, Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh, Picasso, Miró and Modigliani, many of whom are represented here at the Musée de Montmartre. Housed in one of the district’s oldest buildings, the Musée de Montmartre was once a mansion containing artists’ studios used by the likes of Renoir, Charles Camoin and Suzanne Valadon. The peaceful surrounding gardens are named in memory of Renoir, who painted several of his greatest masterpieces when he lived here in the 1870s, including the Bal du moulin de la Galette and Jardin de la rue Cortot, depicting this very garden. Top Paris Museums for Kids Centre Pompidou Paris has stacks of fab museums that children will love with many, including big hitters like the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay, offering free entry for under 18s. The huge Centre Pompidou has an entire floor dedicated to kids aged from 2-16, offering informative tours, exhibitions, hands-on workshops and bags of interactive fun. Better still, workshops for kids aged nine and over don’t require parental supervision, leaving you free to explore the center’s National Museum of Modern Art, which boasts a collection including Picasso, Pollock, Warhol and many more, that’s rivaled only by MoMA in NYC in terms of its variety, scope and quality. Musée du Quai Branly Kids will adore the Musée du Quai Branly’s quirky exterior: a towering green wall of foliage that looks like a giant garden flipped on its side. Inside, there’s much for bright young minds to discover among the vast collection of indigineous art from around the world. Highlights that are sure to entertain include dramatic ceremonial masks from India and Africa, Aboriginal tree-bark paintings, a brightly mosaiced Volkswagen Beetle from Mexico and a massive medieval Moai head from Easter Island. Kids here can also shrug off uncool parents and fly solo in fun arty workshops for ages 6-12. Single Artist Museums Musée Rodin Arguably France’s greatest ever sculptor, Auguste Rodin is celebrated here in a fine collection that also includes a few paintings by fellow Gallic luminaries such as Renoir and Monet. Indisputable star of the show here though is the sedate seven-acre sculpture garden, where many of Rodin’s best-loved creations – including The Thinker, Monument to the Burghers of Calais and The Gates of Hell – can be found scattered among perfectly sculpted box hedges and ornamental pools. Musée Picasso-Paris This collection of over 5,000 works by the father of Cubism is among the world’s finest. His offbeat and unsettling world is represented here by around 700 paintings and surreal sculptures, plus thousands of drawings, notebooks, photos, engravings and other ephemera. Explore the four stories of this delightful 17th-century palace to discover pieces including his Self-Portrait and La Celestina, painted during Picasso’s Blue Period, as well as later works from his Cubist phase and works depicting scenes from the Spanish Civil War from his harrowing war paintings series. Musée National Gustave Moreau Dedicated to the life and works of 19th-century Symbolist painter Gustave Moreau, this fascinating museum was the Moreau family home until the artist’s death in 1898. Among its many highlights are a quite extraordinary spiral staircase and some fairly out-there compositions featuring unicorns and other mythical creatures, hallucinatory visions, bizarre plants and more. Printed guides containing extensive and often rambling commentaries from the man himself are available to take around the museum with you, and you can even visit his old studio and top-floor apartment. Save on the best art galleries in Paris Save on admission to Paris attractions with Go City. Check out @GoCity on Instagram and Facebook for the latest top tips and attraction info.
Stuart Bak
Stuart Bak
A couple embrace in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
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Romantic Things to do in Paris

Wander the streets of the City of Love and you’ll soon discover how Paris earned this most romantic of nicknames. Charming tree-lined squares, couples holding hands at pavement cafés, secret flower gardens and swoonsome Art Deco architecture are just a handful of reasons among many. Read on to discover our pick of the most romantic things to do in Paris, from sunset cruises on the Seine to dining in the Eiffel Tower. Romantic Walks and Cruises in Paris Is there anything more romantic than bobbing along gently in a rowboat, basking in sunshine and gazing lovingly into the eyes of your favorite human? Bois de Boulogne is one of Paris’s biggest parks (over twice the size of Central Park!) and contains a chateau, a botanical garden and several ponds and lakes. It’s on the largest of these – the Lac Inferieur, or Lower Lake – that you can rent old-fashioned wooden boats and row out onto the tranquil waters. Impress your partner by whipping out a Parisian picnic of wine, cheese and fresh baguette when you return to the bank, before taking a post-lunch stroll through the forest to the rose-filled Parc de Bagatelle botanical garden. Keep your eyes peeled for resident peacocks and cute native red squirrels along the way. Paris is chock-full of opportunities for loved-up walks. Stroll hand-in-hand along the Canal Saint-Martin with its shaded quays, cute boho cafés and craft beer bars. Or head to – hear me out – Père Lachaise Cemetery, where sweeping tree-lined avenues are flanked by beautifully decorative sculptures and mausoleums. It’s here you’ll find the tomb of star-crossed lovers Heloise and Abelard, a favorite illicit meeting spot for young sweethearts in the 19th Century. Tradition dictates that visitors to Oscar Wilde’s final resting place should plant a lipsticky kiss on the celebrated author’s grave, though you might be advised to give your relatively germ-free significant other a smooch here instead. A sunset Seine cruise is a great way to see the sights of Paris from the water. Go all gooey-eyed at landmarks including the Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame Cathedral and Louvre Museum as dusk falls and thousands of lights start to twinkle across the city. Grab a glass of champagne to enhance this perfect moment, as your bateau sails gently beneath the soaring arch of Pont Alexandre III, with its gorgeously ornate Art Deco lanterns. I Heart Montmartre Of all the places in Paris that can legitimately lay claim to being the city’s most romantic, Montmartre is arguably the one true holder of the title. Its narrow cobbled alleys, adorable Parisian cafés and, of course, the sumptuous Sacré-Cœur basilica all seem designed with the express intention of making you swoon. Take a walking tour with a local guide to get your bearings then cut loose with your bae to make the kind of romantic memories money just can’t buy. Start by taking in the flamboyant byzantine-style confection that is the Sacré-Cœur and enjoy the sweeping views it affords from its vantage point at the very top of the city. If you’re planning to pop the question, you’d struggle to find a more romantic spot than this. Although, apparently, Paris’s most popular location for proposing marriage isn’t the Sacré-Cœur. Nor even the Eiffel Tower. Or the Palace of Versailles. Nope, it’s... Disneyland. Your guess is as good as ours. Hidden away in Montmartre’s tiny Jehan-Rictus garden square is the wildly romantic-sounding Le Mur Des Je t’aime. This permanent art installation – a love-themed wall made from enameled lava tiles – features the phrase ‘I love you’ in 250 languages, so you can learn to whisper your sweet nothings in Italian, Indonesian, Inuit and more. Like many places in Paris, Montmartre becomes even more beautiful and atmospheric as the sun sets. There’s not much to beat sitting on the basilica steps on a sultry summer evening at sundown, watching the sky change color as the old-fashioned double-decker carousel below wheels into motion, all colorful horses, ornate carriages, carnival lights and the sound of laughter drifting up on the warm evening air. La Belle Vie One of the most extravagant former royal residences on the planet, the Palace of Versailles lies a short distance west of Paris and is easy (and cheap) to reach by direct train. You could easily spend a day here, wandering the palace’s vast interior and experiencing the multitude of impossibly opulent rooms that include the Hall of Mirrors and the King’s private apartments. Don’t miss Marie Antoinette’s quaint Hamlet, a ‘rustic’ retreat with a working mill, and of course the palace’s perfectly manicured formal gardens. Wander among the endless paths, ponds, sculptures and fountains with your own king or queen, admiring this landscaping masterwork that has remained largely unchanged since Louis XIV’s reign in the 17th Century. Not without merit, the Palace of Versailles is one of the world’s most popular attractions. So, if you prefer your chateau sightseeing a little more intimate, Fontainebleau and Vincennes also come highly recommended as alternative options. Both are just as captivating, and equally accessible from central Paris. Paris boasts plenty of romantic restaurants and hotels that will make you feel like royalty yourself. Splash out on a lavish dinner inside the Eiffel Tower at Le Jules Verne, where views of the city sparkling far below like thousands of tiny diamonds are matched only by the immaculate tasting menu and finest French wines. You may have to mortgage a kidney or two to get a room at the Shangri-La Paris. But what price love, eh? This grand and oh-so-Parisian hotel, once the home of Prince Roland Bonaparte, has vintage-feel rooms and suites in golds and duck-egg blues, many with views of the Eiffel Tower. There’s also a chic spa and lovely sun terrace for summer dining. But be prepared to dig deep: prices for rooms without a view start well into four figures. Ooh la la indeed. But maybe, just maybe, all you need for that unforgettable romantic Paris moment is a bottle of chilled champagne and a paper bag brimming with sugary-sweet chouquettes fresh from the boulangerie. Head to the banks of the Seine with your sweetheart at sundown and watch the City of Love light up. Perfect. Save on romantic things to do in Paris Save on admission to Paris attractions with Go City. Check out @GoCity on Instagram and Facebook for the latest top tips and attraction info.
Stuart Bak
Stuart Bak

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