Paris with Children (Kim Horton Levesque): a great guide to help plan a visit

Not long back from a week’s holiday in Paris, I recommend the pocket-sized book Paris with Children as a source of child-friendly tips and trips for folk visiting France’s capital city en famille. (I also recommend comfortable shoes, and picking up an up-to-date RER/Metro/Bus map on arrival!)

Covering the topics of Play, Eat, Shop and Stay, neighbouring attractions are grouped together to make it possible to pick out a set of complementary activities for a day that won’t involve haring across the Paris on a fourteen stop two interchange adventure in-between.

So a visit to see the impressionist paintings (and the stunning clocks) in Musée d'Orsay can be followed by a very worthwhile trip to Musée des Égouts de Paris (the Paris Sewers) and a chance to buy a soft and cuddly toy rat at the gift shop!

Opening times, website details and indicative prices at the time of printing are included along with the background to Parisian customs and culture. Worth remembering that smaller less-tourist-oriented shops will be closed for a week or two in August when the staff go on holiday.

Our copy of Kim Horton Levesque’s guide – produced along with her three research assistants (aged 2, 4 and 6) – is littered with post-it notes marking those attractions that caught the attention of different family members in the run up to our departure.

And while we didn’t stick rigidly to the plan we drew up beforehand, it was a great way to wake up each morning and not have to spend too long negotiating the day’s itinerary.

As time permits, I’ll blog a little about some of the places we enjoyed visiting and my experience of not bringing a proper camera and relying instead on an iPod Touch. In the meantime Paris with Children retails for £12.99 (currently reduced to £9 on Amazon).

If you're visiting with kids, bring this book ... and read it beforehand!

La Tour Eiffel

When visiting Paris, it's hard to resist the draw of another visit to the Eiffel Tower. Play word association with any child that's into their books and "Paris?" will get a response of "Eiffel Tower", much as "Dinosaur?" would get "Barney". Littl'un recognised the towering iron structure without any prompting as it appeared out of nowhere between a couple of trees. But to my surprise - and slight relief - she had no desire to go up to the top. Sitting in her push chair, she leant back and took in the view from the ground. And then scoffed a strawberry-flavoured ice cream while hundreds of tourists and school groups milled around the base.

But while the shape of the tower is instantly recognisable, for me its beauty and fascination is in the detail of the iron work, the girders and mesh that keep it safe in the air.

And every time I see it, my mind casts back to a 1970s film starring Roger Moore that invoved a terrorist group taking over the tower - can't figure out the name, and I could be wrong about the details, but I remember lasers and a beginning set in a training camp up in the far north of Scotland. But perhaps the best photographs I have of the Eiffel Tower are from a previous visit in March 2003, like the one below.

Driving on the small side ... Non! Je dit "reverse"

Driving back home from the Belfast International yesterday afternoon, we were pottering through Templepatrick when I noticed lots of brands (marks?) of cars that I hadn’t seen all week in France.

The French are probably a combination of practical and parochial. They like small cars, and they like French cars (extending the cheque book of friendship across to the odd Italian import).

• No SUVs. No Land Rovers. No big jeeps. Can’t remember seeing a 4x4 all week.
• Plenty of Espace-type people carriers, but nothing outrageously oversized.
• Instead lots of Twingos (old and new models), Peugeot 107s, Citron C1 and C2s, a surprising number of Minis, and quite a few Smart cars around Paris.
• The only Ford models on the road were the odd Fiesta, Ka and a single Focus.
• Very few Mercedes or BMW - though Volkswagen Polos and Golfs were common enough.

Yet, driving through Templepatrick, the array of manufacturers’ vehicles flying past on the other side of the road was bewildering. And the size of them compared to the number of people inside was extraordinary.

The BBC News home page has a couple of spots reserved for quirky and unusual stories, labelled Also in the News. They’re often the most clicked on links after the top story. This morning featured the irresistible Wrong gear confusion leads to flattened sports car - a practical example of why the French might be right to drive on the small side.

Whata mistaka to maka!

However clicking through to read the story brought an unexpected feeling of shame. It was a Northern Ireland story. A Belfast story. Yet more positive representation of thriving Northern Ireland!

It's the story of a Lexus SUV that instead of reversing out of a parking space in the Co-Op car park on the Lisburn Road went forward, and with an automatic gearbox, traction control, and a sturdy pair of wheels, drove up on top of a Porsche Boxster and a Toyota Celica.

Ronan O’Kane’s on-the-spot pictures tell the awful story.

Dominic Montague, who works in a nearby coffee shop, saw the Lexus driver in the aftermath of the crash.

“She just looked befuddled, she couldn't really understand what was going on - which is probably understandable enough if you drove a car out over two other cars,” he said.

It’s not all funny ...

One person, believed to be the Porsche driver, was taken to hospital. His injuries are not believed to be life-threatening.

... and the police are now investigating.

Update - after lunch - although the front page title remains the same, the actual article has been re-titled, from Gear mistake flattens sports car to Lexus rollover in parking lottery, and much of the speculation about going not quite getting into reverse gear has been wiped.

Parisian ways ... Metro and cuisine

The Paris Metro has a distinct advantage over London's Tube: the Metro doesn't run very deep.

Carting Littl'un (and our cases) around Paris, we appreciate the access improvements that the city are making to the Metro.

Some stations have working escalators, some even lifts. However a number have lifts up to the main concourse, but still steps up to street level!

And some major stations like Gare du Nord have broken escalators, no lifts, and just bump-bump-bump steps down to certain platforms. Though we're thankful for helpful passers-by who volunteer to lift the front of the buggy while the other one of us carries the cases up and down.

Whatever its faults, the Metro is miles more accessible than the Tube will ever manage to be in the next five years. And the Paris bus service is very reliable, very regular - and unsurprisingly - very well used.

Getting a decent cup of tea is a real problem. Thé au lait was served yesterday with hot tea and hot milk .... yuck! Tonight, lait froid was provided, and the tea tasted divine. Thank you Holiday Inn!

Though payback for the decent cup'o'tea was the profiteroles. Served with fromage frais not chocolate? Sounded ok.

Picture what arrived - I'll add the photo when I get back home. Update - done!

Three profiteroles, stuffed with cottage cheese. And on the side, a square dish of lettuce. No cream. No ice cream. Not even anything sweet. Hardly deserved to be on the dessert menu! But at least the tea was wonderful.

We'd a lovely lunch yesterday in a tiny backstreet restaurant near St Michael. Tonight we called into a bar near the hotel with a Parisian friend. There was a menu on the door, and Littl'un was hungry.

Him: "Sorry, only thing on the [proper] menu tonight is steak et frites"

Us: "Ok"

Five minutes later. "Actually, too late for steak."

Me: "Hot dog and chips?"

Him "Yes."

Fifteen minutes later, enormous hot dog with a sprinkling of cheese over it arrives.

Me: "Des frites?"

Him: "Ah non. Too late. Enjoy your meal."

For the record the Croque Monsieur avec salade was lacking anything green!

Not great for a gastro-pub that advertised meals all day long.

So our brush with French cuisine has its good and bad points. Though the Quick! burger chain do lovely meaty burgers and the salad equivalent of chips is enormous and very edible.

Tomorrow we head down to Valence on the TGV for 24 hours.