Paris is one of those cities that everyone has to go to once in their lives. Known as the city of love, it’s an ideal destination for a romantic weekend getaway but it’s not always somewhere that people think of taking their kids. However, if you do have young children, there’s no reason to be putting off this beautiful French city and taking the kids with you. You just have to pick and choose what you do while you’re there to make sure it’s a trip that makes everyone happy.

The best time to visit
Paris is a great place to visit year-round. It’s not a city that slows down at any point. You might want to avoid the hottest months of the year as you don’t want the kids wilting as you take them sight-seeing. And another reason to avoid Paris in June and July next year is because of the huge influx of visitors who will be there for Euro 2016.
Equally the winter’s not an ideal time to go, as part of the fun of being in Paris is walking from one great monument or site to another. Travelling with kids, the October and May half-terms are ideal times to visit the French capital or during the Easter holidays.

What to do while you’re there
Of course, there’s one place you’re almost obliged to include if you’re taking little ones to Paris – and that’s Disneyland. It’s a rite of passage for most kids – and, logically, their parents – to go to Disney at least once. If you’re not really keen on the idea yourself, then Paris’s Disneyland allows you to make it an add-on rather than planning a whole trip around it. Only about 40 minutes from the centre of Paris by train, it’s really easy to incorporate a day at Disney in your trip. Thanks to the existence of the entertainment park, there are also plenty of family-friendly accommodation options on that side of Paris in suburbs such as Chessy or Magny-le-Hongre, where it’s equally easy to hop on the train in the other direction to go to the city centre.

Aside from Disney, there are plenty of other child-friendly places to visit in Paris. For children with a sense of adventure, the Paris Catacombs are a must. These underground burial chambers have been a tourist attraction for more than a hundred years.

For children interested in art and art history, we wholeheartedly recommend the Musee D’Orsee, which we visited a few years back and remember as extremely child-friendly(rare for any French public services, as we came to realise!) and absolutely fascinating:

No trip to Paris would be complete without going to the Eiffel Tower and it’s worth booking tickets to go all the way to the top. Booking online, you’ll avoid the worst of the queues, although you’ll still have to wait a while to get from the second level to the top.

The view is worth the wait though, as you can tell from the picture below:

We are planning on returning to Paris with Emma next summer, as last time we visited she was a little small for it and didn’t really enjoy the travelling about for long periods of time.

Have you visited Paris with children and what are your tips for us if we have?