Photo courtesy of ParisInfo.com, Paris Tourist Office
Since I don’t speak any French, I thought it might be a good idea to find a guided tour that specializes in families and children, rather than something more general. The options are overwhelming, so I enlisted the help of the Paris Tour Office who gave me this helpful list of guided tours for children:
Guided tours put Paris, its soul and history within everyone’s grasp
Take a guided walk through the labyrinth of streets in the city to find out more about its history, customs and legends … Tour guides reveal the secrets of Paris. Parisphile offers tours adapted to children (with interpreter): museum visits for children, Da Vinci Code trails for teenagers. Paris d’enfants specializes uniquely in tours for children: ‘must-do’ urban orienteering, paper chases and visits (Versailles, Palais Garnier Opera House, etc.). For its part, Le Petit chercheur d’art organizes family tours for young foreigners in the form of treasure hunts or detective investigations. For a full-scale multimedia show, Paris Story presents Paris across the ages: 2,000 years roll across the panoramic screen. With the company Visites-spectacles, the public is taken on scenic walks in Montmartre or through Paris’s covered passages with a troupe of actors, who take the public back in time to the 1800s. For a bespoke family package, there are specialist travel agencies for foreigners, like Family Twist. For cultural games about Paris, there are several downloadable guided trails for children. The Mission Cinéma de Paris regularly creates trails, linked to recent films, to download on the city’s website.
Finally, the website of the Monuments nationaux has a small game about a French monument (no download).
Parisphile 77 rue Riquet, Paris 18th – M° Opéra – Tel +33 (0)1 40 34 71 57 – www.parisinfo.com
Paris d’enfants – www.parisdenfants.com
Le Petit chercheur d’art – www.lepetitchercheurdart.com
Paris Story, Paris Expérience 11 rue Scribe, Paris 9th – M° Opéra, RER Auber – www.parisstory.com
Visites Spectacles – www.visites-spectacles.com
Family Twist – www.familytwist.fr
Zevisit (audio guides to download for free) – www.zevisit.com
Calliope (audio walk guides) – www.calliope.fr
Ville de Paris (Leisure/cultural walks) – www.paris.fr
Monuments Nationaux – www.monuments-nationaux.fr
More information on guided tours on Paris Info – www.parisinfo.com
If you and your family have gone on a guided tour with an English speaking guide, please share it with us in the comments below. Be sure to tell us what made it so kid-friendly!
There are several small museums in the old villas in the
eighth arrondissement:. There are rides aimed at people
of all ages, some with a Parisian twist. So, if your plans this summer include Disneyland Paris you should consider the train.