A family city guide to Paris

30.08.2023 - 12:53 / nationalgeographic.com / Mona Lisa / Paris / Art

Dogs in handbags, whimsical fountains, rogue Statues of Liberty and cakes like jewels. Paris mesmerises all ages with its sights, sounds and spectacles. Introducing the kids to the Mona Lisa or scampering up the Eiffel Tower are bucket-list highlights. But there’s also an inherent charm in walking through neighbourhood parks and elegant tree-shaded boulevards, marvelling at magical window displays, scoffing sugar-dusted crepes on a cafe pavement terrace and catching street performers on bridges across the Seine.

The French capital is easily walkable, with a family-friendly fleet of hop-on-hop-off river boats, open-top buses, bikes and electric scooters to save tired legs. On the metro, families can pretend they're train drivers as they whoosh through the tunnels in the front carriage of automated lines one and 14, or watch city life unfold on Parisian streets from overhead lines two and six. 

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Toddlers: Explore Paris’s art heritage through play at the kid-focused Musée en Herbe, a five-minute walk from the Louvre. Seasonal exhibitions include rainbow-coloured tunnels, mirror illusions and other interactive elements, and the museum also runs one-hour art workshops.

Young children may be fascinated by the marionette puppet show at the Jardin d’Acclimatation, an amusement park in the enormous Bois de Boulogne woodland on central Paris’s western fringe, with old-school carousels, playgrounds and funfair attractions. There’s also walking trails perfect for pushchairs, and the splash pool and water misters are a godsend on hot summer days.

Northern Paris’s wildly popular science museum, Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie, is also likely to be a hit with curious children; its ‘build, explore, experiment’ play sessions are aimed at two- to seven-year-olds. Book online well in advance and take a picnic to enjoy afterwards in the surrounding Parc de la Villette, with multiple playgrounds and other attractions for children.

Children under 10: So much ofParisian life revolves around its green spaces and the historic Jardin du Luxembourg is one of the city’s grandest. Chasing vintage toy sailing boats with a stick around the ornamental pond has long been a boisterous family activity. Fans of New York’s Statue of Liberty can use the gardens as a starting point for a treasure hunt to find Paris’s five replicas, one of which is here.

Climbing the Eiffel Tower is justifiably one of Paris’s most popular family attractions. Book your online ticket carefully to ensure the most appropriate stair/lift combo for you and the kids — it’s 674 steps or a lift to the second floor, from where a final obligatory lift whisks everyone to the top. Assuming bedtimes allow, consider an evening