Paris (September 2023)
Greetings, dear reader. I hope your summer ended in a delightful manner, as ours did. We had 6 weeks of varying types of rain in the UK, and had planned a Labor Day weekend to Paris. We’ve been a few previous times, but always in the fall and winter, and I really wanted to go to Versailles, so we planned a quick trip to Paris for the last weekend before school started. We also have two train obsessed kids who we thought would like to take the Eurostar through the Channel.
We stayed near the Gare Montparnasse, which was a new area for us, in a Mercure hotel. Because there are like 8,000 Accor hotels in Paris. The location was quite reasonable; there were tons of cafes nearby, and we were also close to 3 different Metro lines (4, 6, 13). The staff were friendly and helpful, and they had water coolers to fill up water bottles on each floor. However, there weren’t many shelves//closets in our room (family room), and the bathroom had an incredibly stupid layout. It was an awkward rectangle, and the shower was too deep and the bathroom overall was too narrow. But the location and the water coolers mainly compensated for the stupid bathroom. Especially because it was super warm 3 of the 4 days we were in Paris, so it was great to fill our water bottles with cold water before we left, and then fill them again in the evening.
For this specific trip, we kept a pretty light agenda. We had booked the Eiffel Tower, Catacombs, and Versailles in advance. The rest we left up to fate. (We had previously done the Louvre, Sacre Cour, Montmartre, and the Arc d’Triomphe on earlier trips.) On Thursday, we arrived to Paris around dinner time. We checked into our hotel, unpacked-ish (per the lack of shelves), and then just kind of took a beat before walking to dinner nearby. The boys had spied a restaurant with pizza on our walk from the train station, so they wanted to go back for dinner. We don’t always let our kids choose the dinner restaurant, but we did on this particular evening. They chose this cafe on the corner with flowers all over and the previously mentioned advertised pizza. It was totally fine; not life changing. Our food was good; we were hungry because we had a light lunch, but Hubs and I felt like every time we dined out it was more than previous visits to Paris. I think there were several contributing factors. First, last time we were in Paris our small humans were really small, and they shared meals. Second, I assume that prices are a little higher than the past given the current global climate. And lastly, I read (whilst researching this issue) that the like gastronomy standards are higher in Paris, because on the whole it’s an affluent area, and that also drives up prices. So I think it was all of the above. After dinner, Hubs and I picked up some beers at the kiosk down the block to drink on the balcony after the boys were asleep.
On Friday, the weather was maybe going to be rainy so we didn’t commit to a ton. We planned first to walk to the Pantheon, which is a mausoleum, via the Luxembourg Gardens. We had a significant delay when we spied a playground, but were unable to stop for a play (IFKYK). We rallied and went to the Pantheon, which really was quite nice. If the weather is reasonable, and you like a view, I’d definitely recommend paying the extra 2 euro to go up the stairs, assuming you have no mobility issues. I think it’s like 270 steps-ish to go up and they’re old stone steps so they can be slick and they’re certainly uneven in some places. It was a very nice way to spend about 1.5-2 hours. HEADS UP: the below ground floor is a mausoleum, and they are very serious about the quiet environment. If you have uncooperative or loud kids or kids who are ready for lunch, I’d skip this bit. We went with ours and I feel like it almost wasn’t fun because we had to keep them so quiet.
After we left the Pantheon, we walked towards the Latin Quarter and grabbed lunch. Hubs and I weren’t super hungry, so we grabbed drinks and shared escargot and fed our kids a real lunch so they weren’t tiny, cranky monsters. During lunch, we decided to book ourselves a river cruise because that’s usually a win and, while I would have been happy to keep walking around, our kids needed an activity. I am reasonably confident we booked with Beateaux Parisiens because we also needed to be near the Eiffel Tower when we finished, and they start//end near there. It was a fine cruise; I’ve been to Paris a few times and never done one, so it was interesting to see familiar sites from a different perspective.
After our tour, we went to the Eiffel Tower. We had pre-booked a visit all the way to the top directly on the website. My personal opinion is that it’s not worth it to pay extra for “skip the line” style tickets, because you can’t skip the line at the Eiffel Tower; it’s a security line. If you pre-book your tickets, you can immediately enter the security line, but no matter what you have to do the security screening. It was really warm on the afternoon we did this, and queuing was pretty brutal at times because it was just hot and still, no breeze came through. If you feel claustrophobic or scared of heights, this could be a potentially challenging experience. Because it’s so popular, they put a lot of people into each elevator going up (although if you put yourself in the middle, you can avoid seeing out) and once you get to the top, you can walk around the platform to see. If you have a ticket to the tip-top, you queue again and take another small elevator to the top. When you arrive to the tip-top there’s an enclosed area, which was super warm on this day, and then you can go outside and walk around again. It was really crowded, and a little tricky to navigate about. After we explored the Tower and went down, we grabbed a light snack at the Eiffel Tower and then started heading to the catacombs.
We had booked tickets for the Catacombs in advance, so we were able to head straight in. It had been so warm that day that being underground in the catacombs felt quite nice. We strolled through, althrough we probably picked up the pace towards the end because our kids were getting hungry. The exit of the Catacombs is in a different area than to the entrance. When we left, we popped by a kiosk and grabbed some cold drinks and then started walking towards the train. We ended up eating dinner in a cafe on the walk back to the train, and headed back to the hotel. We had tickets to Versailles early the next day, so we needed a punctual bedtime for the small humans.
If you’re going to Versailles, I’d suggest planning to spend the better part of the day there. We booked our tickets directly on their site, and did audio guides as well (our kids love audio guides). It’s easy to get to Versailles from Paris, as there’s a train station, but you cannot use metro tickets to get to Versailles. You won’t be able to exit the station at Versailles without a commuter (RER) train ticket. There’s loads to explore at Versailles; we took advantage of the golf carts that you can rent and puttered around the park. We made a few stops, grabbed some cold drinks and snacks at the snack shop, and just enjoyed a sunny afternoon. We headed back towards Paris around 3 or 4 pm, to pack up, find some dinner, and take showers. We had to get up early for the train the next morning to head home.
TL;DR: Paris is a big city that we’ve always enjoyed. There is plenty to do for families with children of all ages, loads of restaurants//cafes, and easy transportation. Take care using the metro if you have a stroller as many stations don’t have elevators or escalators, and it can be quite cumbersome to drag strollers up and down stairs.