Would anyone like to critique my loose London/Paris Itinerary?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
|
Tell me if it sounds too much/not enough, or if I should skip something or I forgot something good? Traveling in June with DH and two teen daughters. I should add that my younger daughter is very skeptical of the trip and doesn't want to "spend all day walking around and looking at stuff." Thanks in advance.
London: Day 1 (arriving on the red eye) - Big Bus Tour (getting off near BP/Cenotaph/Whitehall/Parliament/etc.) and London Eye Day 2 - Afternoon time slot booking at Harry Potter Museum in Watford. Taking the train. Day 3 - British Museum, Covent Garden/Neal's Yard, maybe afternoon Tea this day? (any suggestions that aren't 70 pounds per person??) Day 4 - Cambridge, punting along "the backs" (DH wants this, he studied abroad there ages ago.) Day 5 - Tower of London/Tower Bridge in the morning. Afternoon??? - ideas are: Westminster Abbey, one of the many gardens, Churchill War Rooms or see a musical. Paris: Day 1 (arrive on a morning chunnel trail from Paris) - see Eiffel Tower and Arc du Triomphe Day 2 - Saint Chappelle/Notre Dame, Musee D'Orsay, Montmartre in the afternoon Day 3 - Versailles Day 4 - Louvre, Marais District, maybe take a Macaron class? |
Anonymous
|
I'd build in more time in gardens/parks. Should be nice weather and lots of daylight in June. Hyde Park/Regents Park/Hampstead Heath in London, Luxembourg Garden, Tuileries, Parc Buttes-Chaumont in Paris. Not all of them, of course, but good to mix in nature, views, etc. Also love the Coulee Verte elevated green walk on the eastern side of Paris.
What areas are you staying in in both cities? |
Anonymous
|
Also consider doing some things as a subset. Splitting up when together for over a week is good to mix things up, give you something to talk about over dinner, erc. Maybe one kid studied something in school and wants to see it, the other has no interest, etc.
Also have one parent get a morning or afternoon to themselves somewhere in there. |
Anonymous
| This is a great itinerary -- and I say that because it's almost identical to what we did last spring with our young teens. A couple of things to note: I was very disappointed to find out that you have to pay to get into churches like St. Pauls and St.Chappelle. And it's A LOT. I've been to Paris and London multiple times and it wasn't the case back then. Also note that you should get tickets in advace to the Lourve. My favorite museum in Paris is the Picasso Museum -- also book ahead. It's in the Marias, so you can combine it with a walk in the Places des Vosages (most beautiful park in Paris IMO) and there is good shopping in the neighborhood. Have a great trips! |
Anonymous
|
Boat rides on both the Thames and the Seine are great. Uber Boat can get you pretty directly from the Tower to Westminster.
|
Anonymous
OP here. In London we are staying near Paddington/Edgeware Road tube stop and in Paris we are staying sort of between the Opera metro stop and Montmartre. It was hard to find hotels any closer in our price range. |
Anonymous
|
In London we rented bikes at Hyde park and that was really fun. There is a gorgeous garden of your girls are into taking pictures for their SM or just to share with friends and a nice place to stop for ice cream. I took tons of pictures in the garden for my parents wall and my own frames.
Across from the British museum is a famous historical pub called something like museum tavern. Food was good and nice experience to sit after museum. Highly recommend doing either an audio tour or hiring a guide for the museums so it doesn’t feel like you are just wandering looking at stuff. We used the rick steves 90 minute audio tour for the British museum and it was pretty good. In Rome we hired a guide for the Vatican museum but we haven’t been to louvre. After the Tower, you could walk across the bridge and go to borough market assuming that’s not the one day they are closed. The girls might also like something like portobello market if they are into thirsting. If your kids aren’t museum types, I might build in some shopping/wandering type things. I think a musical is a great idea — we saw Six which is a ton of fun and also short. I feel like your Paris itinerary might be too busy. But I don’t know what to cut because I’ve only been to Paris once and it was just a day. If I had just a few days in Paris, I think o would do a river boat tour, Versailles, and either louvre or musee d orsay and get a guide or audio guide for it. We did go up the Eiffel Tower and it was fun but I might rank it lower down the list. My kids prioritized it though. |
Anonymous
| We went to many historical places and did many things when we went to Paris, but my teenage daughter’s favorite was the Segway tour we took. |
Anonymous
|
Hi OP!
You travel at about the same pace as my family of four, driven by parental pacing preferences. I think your itinerary goals are reasonable but your younger daughter will still complain. Our two boys did at times, but oh well. We saw what we planned and the parents enjoyed it all. Here are some thoughts and recommendations. I've been to London and Paris 3 times each. Once as a kid, once as a young married adult, and once with my family. 1) Bus tour the first day...expect your kids to fall asleep on the bus. Walking around can be a better way of staying awake when you need to. How are you managing hotel check-in? 2) To make walking around and museumgoing less boring, consider walking tours/guided tours. I recommend London Walks. https://www.walks.com/ 3) in Paris, we used the Bato Bus hop on hop off Seine tour bus. We only made one circuit but it was worth the fare. It kept us out of the rain on a day when the weather kept changing from sunny to cloudy to light rain. And we got to see quite a bit without walking. https://www.batobus.com/en 4) We chose not to go up in the Eiffel Tower. We sailed by it, had a thrilling glimpse of it from our Metro train, and went at 8 PM one night to the plaza across the river where you can watch it sparkle on the hour. That was plenty. I went up in the Tower as a kid and thought the view was not so great. I like seeing the Tower pop up unexpectedly in city views better. I do wish I had time to go up in the Arc de Triomphe. We visited only the base. 5) West End theater was a blow out, bucket list treat for us. I highly recommend this...especially if it fills an evening that would be otherwise spent on a phone in a hotel room. My kids and I went to the two-part Harry Potter play. New York had already stopped running it. We enjoyed it a lot. We also finally saw Les Mis and although the plot was a hot mess, my kids enjoyed the music. Others might like Six or The Play That Goes Wrong if those are available. 6) I recommend Pret a Manger in London for quick, affordable meals with kids. A mash up of Panera and the old Au Bon Pain/Vie de France. 7) Two things we liked in Paris were a walk with a Paris Greeter (citizen volunteer) and a paid tour of a Marais bakery where we got to see bread being made and do a little finishing and baking of bread and pastries. Unless you really love macarons, this experience might be more fun for your family. https://greeters.paris/en/ https://www.getyourguide.com/paris-l16/paris-behind-the-scenes-french-baking-experience-t649804/ 8) The big European art museums are pretty unpleasant now when they are crowded. I have recent experiences with the Uffizi, Vatican, Orsay, Orangerie. In the smartphone era, lots of people stop to photograph things they barely look at live. And it's hard to appreciate paintings when you don't have freedom of movement to get close to them and move far away and then move back. This is just a caution to look for ways to go at emptier times, such as late nights, etc. 9) The Musee Carnavalet Paris city history museum in the Marais is interesting, free, and has decent bathrooms. Consider adding it to your Marais plans. 10) We liked the Notre Dame VR experience. Of course the cathedral is open again now, so might be less impactful. I've never been up in the cathedral towers. That might be worth it. https://eternellenotredame.placeminute.com/event/musees-expositions-visites-guidees/eternelle-notre-dame-une-expedition-immersive-en-realite-virtuelle-sur-le-parvis-de-notre-dame,39035.html?sl=2994&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiAiOa9BhBqEiwABCdG87HCh5BXwsLU6UJfzwEGhHZepXIzwcQoDRyY_JN7JGof2fDrJ8PEJBoCRV8QAvD_BwE There's also an augmented reality experience like the above regarding the Lascaux caves at the prehistory museum in Paris. I'd like to do that someday. Have fun! |
Anonymous
|
OP here. Thanks all, this is great.
And to answer OP. I'm not sure what we are doing about hotel checkin. We plan to go there straight from Heathrow to drop our bags but it will be like 9am so I don't have an expectation of a room for many hours after that. |
Anonymous
As far as it being 'too much' and listening to your young daughter... I think you are doing pretty well planning one thing for the morning, and one thing for the afternoon... in general. You have mostly done this in London. Other ideas for London: Family enjoyed visiting Greenwich. Can be combined with Thames river cruise. Paris: Seems a little too packed, but that depends on how much time you want to spend inside the big museums on the list, like the Louvre. Also - would likely skip Montmartre on day #2. Notre Dame /Saint Chapelle and Musee d'Orsay is already plenty. Leave some time off to enjoy meals/people watching/parks/shopping. |
Anonymous
| Just get a London bus day pass. You don't need the tourist bus. |
Anonymous
You may feel pretty bad the first day. I don't sleep on planes and arrive in Europe feeling blah. |
Anonymous
. I agree it would be good to build in some rest time. It can be fun to sit at an outdoor cafe and watch the world go by or go to an outdoor market or wander along a canal towpath. |
Anonymous
|
What if we’re at war with the UK and France in June?
Or, not at war, but they impose sanctions and suddenly require a visa, instead of just letting you in? |