<p>My then 6 year old’s favorite thing in Paris were the stain glass windows at St. Chapelle. You can have ice cream at [url=<a href=“http://www.berthillon.fr/mag/fr/page-112620.htm]Plan”>http://www.berthillon.fr/mag/fr/page-112620.htm]Plan</a> d’acc</p>
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<p>S1 who was deep in his choo-choo train phase loved the Orsay museum (a converted train station) and had to be pried away from the miniature stage at closing time. He was utterly fascinated by the mechanics.
I second Maison Berthillon for ice-cream.</p>
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<p>LOL. We spent 2 weeks in France when our daughters were 6 and 9. Just about every restaurant we went to had a kids menu (menu d’enfants) that consisted of exactly one meal: “steak hache” (“chopped steak,” pretty much just an ordinary hamburger patty, sans bun) with pommes frites (fries) and chocolate mousse for dessert. The girls loved it the first three or four days, but by the time we came home they couldn’t stand the thought of a hamburger and fries for a good six months, and to this day the thought of chocolate mousse makes them shudder. Enough rich stuff to choke a horse. Of course most of these restaurants were outside of Paris. There are plenty of food choices in Paris.</p>
<p>D is an art history major and we visited Paris as part of a trip pre-study abroad for her in summer 2007. We spent less than two hours in the Louvre and part of that time was spent eating lunch at their cafe. We saw the required highlights (I had been there many years before) and then she said let’s get out of here, not my favorite art. We loved L’Orangerie which is just a block or so away and has a small, but wonderful collection of Impressionist and Modern pieces. We also enjoyed d’Orsay, but there was a massive number of students there on a Saturday and we are not crowd lovers.</p>
<p>Hamburgers not readily available in Paris? My nieces and nephews are hard-core McDo devotees! They found that McDo were cheaper here than in France and I had to put my foot down otherwise we would have been eating McDo at every lunch for the two weeks they visited.</p>
<p>Catacombs, Orsay, and Notre Dame - go to Notre Dame when the sun is shining. To cut costs it is very poorly lit. I went late afternoon on a dim day and it was too dark.</p>
<p>Mentioned a page back but I want to emphasize how cool Pere Lachaise cemetery is. Not like anything else with graves of really famous folks - Jim Morrison, Frederic Chopin, Balzac, Marcel Proust, Apollinaire, Moliere, and Oscar Wilde. Isn’t D’orsay opened later for a good evening activity. Up top on the Arc de Triomphe at night looking out is a truly spectacular view. A lunch at Le Train Bleu is about as classic a Paris dining experience as it gets.</p>
<p>We went to a bistro, no menu really. The special was “what you Americans called hamburger.” We had our girls plus one of their friends with us. They were so excited about hamburger after a week of Parisian food. We didn’t even bother to ask for the price because after all it’s hamburger. They told us it was the best burger. The bill came - it was 19 Euro each.</p>
<p>Le Train Bleu was a big hit with S1 in his choo-choo phase. He also spent a very happy morning looking at the TGVs as the Gare de Lyon.</p>
<p>The catacombs are a great idea.</p>
<p>Our local paper just had a feature on the best hamburgers in town. The most expensive one costs around $19–cheaper than 19 euros, but still enough to make me blanch.</p>
<p>catacombs are creepy. Kids friend went down there, showed us some video of it. Not a fan.</p>
<p>Also took my kids to Paris at around that age. Favorite places were Musee d’Orsay and its gorgeous Belle Epoque ice cream parlor.</p>
<p>The Cluny museum with unicorn tapestries. They’d seen some of them at the Cloisters in NY, our stomping ground.</p>
<p>S loved Louvre (he is the younger!!), D did not.</p>
<p>Montmartre and Sacre Coeur. It is touristy but wonderful. The metro station there is gorgeous too.</p>
<p>D loved, loved shopping on the Champs Elysees. Laduree is now their favorite restaurant in the world. It has frosted macaroons in 28 flavors and the best hot chocolate I have ever tasted. Another gorgeous Belle Epoque room.</p>
<p>Right across a tiny street from Laduree on a side street (rue lincoln and le champs elysee) is an old fashioned English language cinema. It was quite a rest for tired feet. And it was fun for the kids to explain the plot of the English language movie to very polite Parisian francophones. We saw Gosford Park there, and the ending was a tad confusing for the non-English speaking folk.</p>