Paris with young teens

[BlueRaspberry7]

Please share your recommendations for Paris with two young teenagers (13 and 15). We're going for four nights in October and want to fit in a couple of the galleries (Louvre, Pompidou), Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower, and also just walk about and soak up atmosphere. We're not going to EuroDisney.

Where are the best areas to stay in? Any hotel recommendations with great interconnecting rooms? And any hidden gems to visit / areas to avoid?

All tips and experiences of what did / didn't work well would be greatly appreciated

We did similar with similar ages after lockdown.

They moaned constantly about waking everywhere, but now say it was the best holiday ever and we were imagining all the moaning!

we did all of your itinerary plus a 2 hr walking food tour of some small area (can’t remember where). Booked on tripadvisor and that was great.

also suggest downloading self-guided walking tours on your phones. They are fab for various cities. Everyone listens to their own device, but you can stop and start and come back tomorrow to continue the tour. VoiceMap is one app. Travel Bee the other, I think. Am sure they have Paris ones.

id probably suggest an apartment instead of a hotel. Lots of nice bakeries around for breakfast and they tend to be a bit more spacious.

Bon voyage!

@NevergonnagiveHughup self-guided walking tours is a brilliant tip, thanks! Was gonna ask about tours but my lot dislike anything too organised / involving groups - so this is perf, thanks

Went last year with a teen and an almost teen.
Asked them to pick one place they definitely wanted to see.
One picked Paris Opera House (amazing), the other picked PSG Football stadium (which was actually pretty good to).
Use the metro, so easy to navigate and get around.
We did all the usual tourist haunts but my favourite parts were walking down the Siene, picnic in the gardens by the Eiffel Tower and watching couples dancing in the square by our hotel.
We stayed in the 9th arr, picked partly as it's kind of in the middle and the hotel was right next to a metro station that ran 4 lines so we could easily get to most places.
Check out Galleries Lafayette. A shopping centre where you can go to the roof (for free) and get some amazing views of Paris

Didn't go with teens but we did the fast track on the Eiffel Tower with a guide, really interesting listening to the history of Paris.
Montmatre was fab, you can look across Paris, grab a coffee and watch the street artists.
When we went they had the Yellow jacket protests, we ended up locked in a bar.
If you arrive via Gare du Nord station, don't hang around, I saw something not good, scared me tbh.
I can't remember where we stayed though but dd booked through booking.com

Stayed in montmartre with my 14 year old. We loved it, but be warned the area is very touristy with lots of shops tourists like.
Got a metro/bus pass for the week.

The Museé d'Orsay might be better for teens than the Louvre. It has all the Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh, etc that you know...

If they get fed of walking, you could always do the open top bus tour of have afternoon tea on a glass top boat tour on the Seine.

Agree, skip the Louvre and go to the Musee d'Orsay instead. The Louvre is vast and you could be in there for days; Musee d'Orsay much more manageable and a lot of very recognisable art as well as a beautiful building. Personally I find Montmartre very touristy; watch out for scams where people try to tie a friendship bracelet on you and then charge you for it - they often target kids/teens.

I much prefer the Marais and Latin Quarter - the Place de Contrescarpe is less touristy although still very busy - which are lovely for strolling around. If you want a view of Paris with the Eiffel Tower in it, a trip up the Montparnasse Tower is well worth it. If your teens have never been to Paris before, go to the Trocadero metro for a fantastic view of the Eiffel Tower - you can walk down to it from there and across the river. Never visited but teens might like the catacombs. Musée de l'Orangerie has some huge Monet pictures if you're a fan - they're really stunning. Our kids were impressed by the Sainte Chapelle but go first thing as it gets really busy, and it needs to be a sunny day to take full advantage of the stunning stained glass windows.

River cruise went down well. We did the military museum, napoleons tomb, a concert (classical). Versailles took a full day but is worth it

For hotels we normally used holiday inns everywhere once teens because their executive rooms are 2 room suites and they make twin beds up in the "living room" section and it (used to be) no extra charge for under 18's. Stuff yourself at breakfast so you don't need more than a snack for lunch.

Another vote for the Montparnasse tower. We went with similar age DCs during the school holidays and it wasn’t particularly busy there. Fabulous views across the whole of Paris from an indoor viewing area, as well as a rooftop terrace. Very Instagram-able if your teens are into that.

Watch Travel Man (on channel 4 catch up) for Richard Ayoade’s 48 hours in Paris.

If you do go to the Louvre, I’d recommend following the 1.5 hour ‘highlights of the museum’ tour which you can download for free from the Louvre’s website and you just guide yourself round. It picks up all the well known bits (Mona Lisa etc) and saves you all getting serious museum fatigue otherwise.

Paris is fab. Enjoy!

The Catacombs and Pere Lachaise cemetery went down a storm with my DD,who was into the macabre at the time. (She still loves horror movies now, six years later)

We took a boat trip the last time we went, which was nice.

thanks so much all who commented, this is incredibly helpful advice

Check out Les Frenchies on you tube (American lady and her French husband).
Brilliant tips on there re getting around and what to see

As a teenager I loved the river cruise and pierre lachaise cemetery, but be warned the latter is massive! Very difficult to find particular graves - there are unofficial guides, but they do tend to want quite large 'tips' at the end...

You'll all have a great time, beautiful city perfect with teenagers.

Campanile

I went to Paris with school. I really enjoyed the impressionist museum, got lost in the Louvre, loved the bastille and the bateau mouche .

We stayed in a hovel near Gare de l'est. It was very convenient for the metro.

If you're travelling with girls watch them like a hawk on the metro. I had a bloke grope me, you should have seen his face when I turned and give hi. A mouthful. It's lucky I was good at French

Take them to Bouillon Chartier for lunch, one of the old style grand bistros and surprisingly cheap. My kids loved it at all ages. Stay around the Latin Quarter, picnic on the banks of the Seine with all the French students as the sun goes down.

I seem to remember crossing from the Ile de la Cite to the Ile St Louis and having ice cream at Berthillon went down well. Shakespeare and Co if they're into books and the queues aren't too bad (never had to queue in my day!) The Catacombes usually do go down well with teens. We went to Rue des Rosiers in the Marais for the best falafel.
Taking the funicular up the Butte to Sacre Coeur usually goes down well too- if there's an athletic member of the group challenge them to race it up the steps! Canal St Martin is beautiful to walk along, and especially in the summer you will see Real Young Parisians hanging out in deckchairs, playing boules etc. At the end is Parc de la Villette, with various things like the Cite de Science et Industrie, and a programme of events in the summer- I've been to outdoor cinema there for example.

Is there anything that they're specifically into? You'd better pray they're not parcour fanatics and insist on dragging you to the Home of Parcour, which is a massive, baffling concrete erection in a suburban Park in the middle of nowhere 😬

We stayed in Hotel Square Louvois
https://www.hotel-louvois-paris.com/en/hotel/
It is centrally located the Japanese quarter. Great family suites and they do a free afternoon tea. And they have a small swimming pool.

I wouldn't bother with the Louvre. Massive and heaving. Instead go to the Orangerie. It is small and perfect. Especially the Monet rooms - not to be missed.

Are the Catacombs still open? (Haven't been in years.)

The Arc de Triomphe is worth exploring. Interesting from beneath, even more so from on top.

Paris Opera was a surprising gem. We visited in the day, not to see a performance. Our teen didn't really want to go there, and then had to be dragged away 😄

Berthillon Ice-creams on Ile St Louis.

@Missionimprobable what did you see at garde.de nore and inside or outside !

@BlueRaspberry7 did you go and what did they enjoy.

@Itcantbetrue yes, we went. We avoided the big museums and went to Musée Marmottan Monet. my youngest loved seeing the Water Lilies and it was a really well organised gallery, with a fab temporary exhibition on expressions of dreams and sleep in art.

We did very touristy things like walking beside the Seine and getting crepes by the Eiffel Tower, which they liked, but it was obviously ludicrously busy on the pavements (and don't wear heels).

But their favourite thing was the eating - stumbling across a late night bistro fill of hip young things, getting to order food and drinks in French.

One regret is the 3-day trip wasn't long enough. we packed too much walking in on the first day, then they were exhausted for the second so we lost a day.

We are planning on going next October with 16yo and 12yo. I'm desperate to go to giverny on a day trip and also like to go to reims to do the tattinger tour. In an ideal world we'd stay overnight at giverny, see the house, and garden the first day then travel into Paris to do some art galleries and sights (ds1 doing gcse art). Then go to epernay to see the avenue of champagne houses.

We stayed at a lovely Hotel called Hotel Taylor which felt very cool and was in a lovely area plus close to the metro. It’s close enough to the Louvre to walk to.

We did most of the touristy things all of which we both enjoyed, we also went to Disneyland for the day which was full on but good.

Theres a museum called (I think) the petite palis which is walkable from the Eiffel Tower and is great plus it’s free.