Paris for a few days with DS age 10- Can you answer me these questions please?

[hulahoopsilove]

hubby and I are thinking of going next year for a few days probably 4-5 days as we can get very reduced rates on eurostar. DS age 10 will be coming with us.

Where do you recommend we stay?
What do you recommend we sight see?
Where do you recommend we eat?

If you want to go up the Eiffel Tower, get there early.

The Sacre Coeur is fantastic, and has an amazing view

Bateaux Mouche for a boat trip along the Seine

We did all of the above plus more with the DDs last year (10 and 7 at the time)

• Lunch in Monmartre
• Louvre
• Musee d'Orsay

-Champs Élysées including an icecream at the Publicis head office cafe

• Notre Dame
• bit of shopping

We stayed at the Crowne Plaza hotel at Place de la Republique - soulless place but we got a really good deal with our Eurostar tickets. We walked or took the metro everywhere so exact location doesn't really matter, everywhere is very accessible. As for where to eat, there are masses of cafes for breakfast and lunch and bistros for dinner. Steak frites yummmmmm. We used the TripAdvisor app / website a lot.

another question...er we dont speak any French well I remember my school French - will we be able to get by?

School french, a smile, a phrase book and lots of Mercis, and you will be fine!

You must make it to the jardin d'acclimatation for your DS.

We stayed in the Hotel Crayon near the Palais Royale. This is a brilliant location.

Not sure about the Louvre. Vast and hard work.

When you go, see what exhibitions are on. We saw a Louis Vuitton exhibition a few years ago (not for a10 year old boy!) but there will be others when you are there. The Arc de Triomphe is very "Paris" and you can see the Champs Élysées where the Tour de France finishes. You can always take a trip out to Versailles.

We stayed at a Novotel in Les Halle's, convenient and good.

If your heart is set on the Eiffel Tower, get tickets online a long time before. We put it off as the weather forecats changed hourly and then no tickets were available anymore. We did the Tour Montparnasse instead.

Louvre, I tank it depends on your child. I know I,as an adult, do not like art galleries so we didn't went. Far too expensive just to walk around.

A open bus tour is a good way to see the city.

Versaille - order tickets online or you queue for ages.

Eating out can be expensive, we paid around €100 per night, that included drinks though. Lunch was often crepes etc, cheaper and cheerful. Or if the weather is good get some bread and cheese and do a picnic.

Oh, check out if there are any public holidays when you go. They have some more than we do and then shops and some attractions are closed.

We stayed in a little apartment that we found on airbnb. Very reasonable. It was in the Bastille district.

We got breakfast from the boulangerie downstairs and had fun shopping for ingredients for the occasional meal that we cooked for ourselves.

The metro was close by and DS really enjoyed travelling on it.

A highlight of the trip was finding the chocolate shop in Montmatre - there was a massive pirate shop made out of chocolate!

This is a good article

www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/france/parisandaround/9588897/Paris-on-a-budget-the-best-cheap-hotels-and-restaurants.html

We eat here
www.restaurant-chartier.com/www/visit/
cheap, very french, great steak & fries!

Café Constant run by Michelin star chef Christian Constant on the rue St Dominique is excellent value. He also has 2 more upmarket restaurants on the same street if you want to splash out. It's not far from the Eiffel Tower and you can check out the menu on line. If I remember rightly they don't take bookings, so get there early and maybe be prepared to wait a bit.

Instead of expensive river cruises take the batobus. It's the seine river bus service its cheap and the views are spectacular

Was just coming on to say batobus! Our kids loved it (as did we).

We stayed in the Citadines apartments near Place de la Bastille. Appreciated having self-catering facilities and the kids having a separate bedroom.

We booked Eiffel Tower tickets online in advance, which I would recommend as it saved us a lot of queuing.