This is my last Paris post. Sorry for those who aren’t Francophiles.
The books for the kids were key. We read tons before we left and while on the trip, and it gave the kids things to look for and focus on. Tons of these books are at the library, lots are available used, and some we simply splurged on. Of course there are many more, but these are the ones we read and used and that, in the next month, I’ll forget, so here they are:
Guidebooks
Fodor’s Around Paris with Kids, 4th Edition (Around the City with Kids) : This was the guide book I used the most. A few misses, but mostly great information with helpful suggestions of places to eat near each sight.
Paris: While We’re Young: An interesting book in that it puts together a complete itinerary based on history instead of geography for you as well as gives you the history you need to know. As clever as it was, this was the book I used the least.
City Walks: Paris, Revised Edition: 50 Adventures on Foot: This is a series of walks printed on individual cards. Very handy to pull out the card for the day and just stick it in my bag as a “just in case.” We followed a couple of them and it was fun.
Rick Steves’ Paris 2011: The best guidebook for all-over traveling. Great food suggestions, nice walks, great for picking out the “must-sees.”
Books on France
These were great for background on the country before we left and gave us things to focus on (Must try that food! Want to see that historical sight!)
First Book of France
Find Out About France: Learn French Words and Phrases and About Life in France (Find Out About Books)
The Inside-Outside Book of Paris
Books on Artists
Having read about some of the artists before seeing the work made the work much more interesting to Pie. The big disappointment of the trip is that the Musee Picasso was under renovation so we couldn’t visit.
Van Gogh (Getting to Know the World’s Great Artists)
Vincent Van Gogh: Sunflowers and Swirly Stars
Degas (Getting to Know the World’s Great Artists) : We used these mostly when we went to Provence. The town we stayed in—Saint Remy de Provence—is where Van Gogh’s insane asylum is located.
Monet (Getting to Know the World’s Great Artists) : Great before the Orangerie.
The Boy Who Bit Picasso (which is now Pie’s all time favorite book)
Paris in the Spring with Picasso
Chasing Degas
Degas and the Little Dancer
History
The history books were more for the boy just because of his reading level and his interests. One of my favorite things was when the boy would surprise me at a particular place with some bit of history that he had read.
Paris 1789: A Guide to Paris on the Eve of the Revolution (Sightseers Essential Travel Guides to the Past): Really cute way of presenting history of the Revolution.
You Wouldn’t Want to Be a Crusader!: A War You’d Rather Not FightYou Wouldn’t Want to Be an Aristocrat in the French Revolution!: A Horrible Time in Paris You’d Rather Avoid
You Wouldn’t Want to Be Joan of Arc!: A Mission You Might Want to Miss: The “You Wouldn’t Want” series is a funny look at different points of history (there are many, many more). Doodles read and reread these books throughout the trip.
France (Horrible Histories)
Measly Middle Ages (Horrible Histories): The Horrible Histories we discovered on the trip and they have every gross-out historical fact to make a kid happy.
Stories
Madeline: “In an old house in Paris covered with vines, lived twelve little girls in two straight lines….”
Dodsworth in Paris: A nice early reader.
Postmark Paris: A Story in Stamps
The Invention of Hugo Cabret: Don’t be intimidated by the size of this book. Much of it is incredible illustration.
Charlotte in Paris: There’s a Giverny version of the book as well.
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (Classic Starts Series) by Victor Hugo: An abridged version of the classic. The boy liked it so much, I was sorry I didn’t also get him the Les Miserables version.
Nicholas by Rene Goscinny
A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver by E. L. Konigsburg: This was the surprise of the trip. I didn’t think Doodles would read this, and he loved it!
Happy reading!
I know most of you are sick of hearing about France, so for you guys, just skip this and the next post. But for those of you who have e-mailed me or Facebooked me and said, “I want to get ideas from you for when we go to Paris with our kid(s),” I wanted to get all my thoughts down in one place that I could refer back to. So that is this.
**The first day will be a disaster. Expect it. Prepare for it. It’s a six-hour flight and a six-hour time difference, so when you arrive at 7:30 in the morning, your kids will be exhausted. Check in at our hotel was 2 p.m. We dropped off our luggage, went out for breakfast, and then went to play at the Jardin du Luxemborg. A late afternoon nap got them pretty much on schedule.
**Don’t fear the French. Not the people. The language. My kids could spit out a “Merci†if under duress, but that was the extent of their knowledge. Adam and I had minimal French but not enough for any real conversation. That said, we went to a few things that were in French only and still thoroughly enjoyed them.
—The marionette (which is “puppet†in French, and not necessarily the marionnette dolls we think of with strings) show in the Jardins du Luxemborg are completely in French, but the stories are familiar enough that the kids enjoyed them.
—The Musee de Magie is a museum of magic that has a show that’s all in French. The Double Fond is also a magic show entirely in French. But magic is magic and you don’t have to understand the banter to be wowed by the tricks.
—Lots of places had demonstrations—a gladiator show in Arles, a catapult demonstration in La Boux—that had no English, but again, who needs English when things are being launched in the air or men in strange get-ups are swinging at each other with swords and nets.
**The key to museums for us was a sketchbook and drawing set that we gave each child. They decorated their sketchbooks before we left with Paris pictures to get them in the mood. Then, in each museum, they happily stopped to sketch, which meant one parent could explore the room they were sketching in and the other could even go a bit farther. People took as many pictures of our kids sketching as they did of the art work!
**Set your expectations low. Buy a museum pass so you don’t feel that you just spent 10 Euros on an hour at the Louvre. Also, the museum pass lets you skip the ticket buyers line, which will save a lot of headache. At each museum, we had one or two goals. Anything else we saw we considered at bonus. For instance, at the Louvre, we wanted to see the Mona Lisa and a vase that Doodles had read about in A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver by E. L. Konigsburg that Eleanor of Aquitaine had been given by Louis VII on their marriage. (We asked for help finding the vase at the information desk, and once the woman figured out my pronunciation of “Eleanor of Aquitaine,†she was extremely nice in helping us to locate it; I think she was happy that someone was looking for something other than the Mona Lisa). At the Musee D’Orsay, Pie wanted to see the Degas ballerina with the peach ribbon from her book Degas and the Little Dancer.
**Throw out any normal expectations of healthy eating. Some nights, it’s just better to have chocolate sorbet (from Martine Lambert, of course!) for dinner. One child pretty much lived on pasta with butter; the other on steak Hachette, which is a burger—no bun—and fries. Note the French default to rare meat unless you tell them otherwise.
**Buy your ticket to the Eifel Tower before you even leave the USA. You can print out a ticket and boy does it make the day soooo much better! The lines for tickets snake for hours. Our prepurchased ticket had a time to show up, and we waited for about 15 minutes. Once on top of the Eifel Tower, do the Follow Gus activity with your child—it’s a cute way to learn about the Tower.
**Hannah Montana dubbed in French is as annoying as Hannah Montana in English, but at least you can pretend your kids are learning some of the language.
**Keep a stock of Euros for carousels. Carousels are everywhere and they are a fabulous bribe. “If you can walk across that bridge because your parents would like to walk instead of taking a subway, you can ride the carousel over there!”
So, the highlights with the kids:
- A Bateau Parisianne cruise on the Seine
- Going up the Eifel Tower
- Going up the Arc de Triomphe
- Watching the Eifel Tower light show (at the top of the hour, after dusk, which in the summer is about 10 p.m.)
- The Louvre
- The Musee D’Orsay
- Shopping the street markets
- The Invalides (Army museum where Napoleon’s tomb is)
- The Orangerie (Monet’s water lilies)
- Musee Rodin
- The Musee de Magie
- Shopping at Printemps; window shopping at the more expensive Galleries de Lafeyette
- Macaroons at Pierre Herme
- Climbing the stairs to Sacre Couer
- The Centre Pompidou at the Beaubourg
- Watching the street performers outside the Centre Pompidou
Things to skip (not many!):
- The Paris Story movie—overrated and really pretty boring
- Most flea markets in August (many things shut down in Paris in August so the markets were sparse; most of what we wanted to see, though, was open and it was a boon to my wallet that so many cute stores were closed). We went to one market that was a complete dud and one that was lively and fun—so just check!
If you’re really planning a trip, you can find a lot of my hotel/dining reviews on TripAdvisor (of course, as you probably know that’s where Adam works, so that’s where I do my reviewing).
Tomorrow I’ll post my kids’ book list for Paris, but in the meantime, Bon Voyage!
