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Paris with Kids

Our Director of Broadcasting Steve Fright and family tackle Paris for the weekend…

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February 2007: “I don’t want to do French anymore Dad as I’m the only boy in the class”. “Well son, if you do continue, we’ll take you to Paris to try out your French, and we’ll even go on the new super-fast Eurostar train. More importantly, what exactly are you complaining about anyway?”

October 2007: “Bonjour Dad, ou est my trip de Paris on that fast train then?”

And so, having learnt that an 8-year old’s memory is still untroubled enough to remember every pathetic piece of bribery ever offered, I get busy booking the trip.

We (that’s me, wife and kids - 2 boys aged 6 and 8) set off for Paris in November. We chose November because we really wanted to try the new Eurostar service from St Pancras that was launched with great fanfare on the 14th of the month. I was looking forward to seeing the refurbished St Pancras as I’ve always loved the building that fronts the station, originally called The Midland Grand Hotel designed by George Gilbert Scott. I’ve often wondered what would become of it. It seems to have been ignored for so long, as much as you can ignore a gothic revival, checkerboard-trimmed building, and I’m glad it’s being put to proper use again.

First rule of travel, check your route before setting out; Yep, Eurostar still running. Expanded first rule of travel for the stupid, check your ENTIRE route before setting out. The “easy straight to King’s Cross” tube line was closed. Yes, and so was the second “fairly easy” route I’d planned as back-up. Taxi? 15 minute wait. The old “we could miss this you know” thoughts kick in. So emergency re-planning on-the-fly, we’ll bus it up to another tube line, go Central Line, then go Victoria Line and peg it. The bus is packed and slow, the tube is packed and slower, the only thing that isn’t slow is my heartbeat and the mantra of “oh bollocks” going round my head. We get to St Pancras just in time. So unfortunately, any hopes of offering you an in-depth musing on the new station are lost. It looks great. A lot of the shops in the station didn’t seem to have opened yet, but then they did go past in a blur so I couldn’t be sure.

The service leaves bang on time. It must be a smooth ride because within ten minutes of departure 80% of the carriage is asleep. The other 20% comprise me, my wife, our noisy kids and the people sat in the immediate vicinity of me, my wife and our noisy kids. I conduct numerous trips to the toilet, buffet car,.. er…anywhere to keep the kids “epicentre of noise” mobile. The service arrives bang on time. Hurrah! Now I have to admit, I’m the kind of traveller that thinks the travelling bit, and associated delays, is usually the bit that ruins holidays so this hop-on, hop-off, you’re there, style of travel is a pleasant surprise. We grab a taxi to the hotel and the fare seemed very cheap to a Londoner accustomed to the cascading figures seen on a London taxi meter.

We’d decided to stay at the Hyatt Regency Paris-Madeline. When we arrive, after the kids have had a field day with the revolving door, my wife says “Finally, you bring me to a hotel that actually makes me feel happy as soon as I enter”. I think back to all the ‘unique’ hotels we have stayed in before, including the one by the Pont Neuf run by a Budda-like Moroccan (Iranian?) woman who served communal breakfast on cushions (us on cushions not the breakfast) amongst hundreds of cats. I see what she means. We go up to our rooms, a Classic and a Deluxe, which are connected. Problem is we can’t see how they are connected. We investigate the walls and backs of wardrobes. I decided to concentrate my efforts on the wooden panelling behind the bed which, once I solve the Indiana Jones style riddle of which panels to press in what sequence, will reveal a hidden passageway. My wife presses on with her absurd theory that the mirror is concealing something door-like. Defeated, I call reception to be told that a little further back up the corridor is a door which seals off the two rooms. How cool is that? We have our own wing of the hotel. The kids celebrate by holding a long jump competition in our newly-annexed corridor.

While we unpack I leave the kids with a few simple instructions. No fighting, no running around, no touching stuff. A whole two minutes later I return with fresh instructions. No more fighting, no more running around, no more ordering films off the TV, put EVERYTHING back in the mini bar. By the time we have unpacked the kids have measured the flat screen TVs in each room, declared ours bigger and therefore claimed sovereignty over our room. After a short parley, we decide to allow TV watching in our room (I won’t go into the other 25 sub-agreements). They find Travel Channel (hurrah!) and they soon become engrossed in an Extreme Travellers episode showcasing some pretty amazing ski and snowboarding action. They’re quiet for about 10 minutes, almost a record. I decide to rethink our audience dynamic – ‘Travel Channel, the only babysitter you’ll ever need’. Hmmm needs some work, I’ll get back to it.

We head out for something to eat. It’s too late for lunch but too early for dinner but then that’s rarely problematic at a French café. They offer you all sorts of options and in really smart old film set surroundings. All the waiters are amazingly well turned out in bow ties, waistcoats and long aprons, and it’s clear they think the job is an important one and take pride in it - which is the way it should be if executed well. It requires a lot of skill. I think of the levels to which the profession has sunk in most of England and shudder.

We settle on a café not far from the hotel and enjoy a really good meal with coffee and dessert for about €60. However, it’s quite surprising how quickly you become used to smoke-free restaurants. The French are furiously efficient smokers, the two chic ladies behind us, with small dogs in their bags (i.e. free entertainment for kids – “look Dad there’s a dog in that bag” repeated endlessly) get through about 10 each during our meal. Somehow it doesn’t seem so bad in late afternoon, at breakfast the next day it’s a different matter.

One thing I notice on this trip is how predominant English has become since I last visited Paris. All the instructions come with English translations, the buses seem to carry more English-worded advertising than French, and they appear to have given up labelling toilets in anything other than English; or is this a sly dig “English is only fit to label the toilet”!

Now it could be my poor French but every answer came back in English. I’m trying to improve/resurrect my O-level French here! Once, this led to a bizarre Mexican stand-off with a waiter in a restaurant close to the Eiffel Tower. From the off, I press on with my poor French and he continues to answer in English. Course after course, request after request it continues like this until disaster strikes. The kids have dropped a fourth fork (FOURTH!) and I have pilfered all the available ones from the table to my left. The problem is I can’t remember the French for fork. Forkeau? Forkique? Damn! I acquiesce and ask in English. I then bombard the waiter with requests for all the other things I couldn’t remember the name of in French but had hitherto convinced myself I could do without.

After this early supper, we return to the hotel for an early night on a mattress that immediately provokes the thought, “we really should get a new mattress when we return home”.

Next day we decide to show the kids some famous sights. I mean that’s what they like isn’t it? The latest, highly discussed, modern gallery, boring! The big sticky up Eiffel Tower thing they’ve seen about 10 times at school, get in! We take a nice amble along the Seine in very pleasant weather for November. I think it’s nice to follow an “in the general direction of” kind of path rather than a rigidly planned route. That way you can meander down some back streets and get a feel for a city. Of course, this can go horribly wrong and my wife reminds me that it was this very approach that once left us in a pretty rough neighbourhood on the way to Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco – “Hey man, what happened to love and peace? Why is that car on fire? Is that a REAL gun?!”

Queues. Hate ‘em! There’s a big one at every leg of the Eiffel Tower. Extra curricular whinging time for kids is what a queue is. Our kids go at it with relish. We placate them with the offer of a one inch high, bright purple, replica Eiffel Tower key ring if they are good. Additional terms consisting of the promise of another key ring for their close friend are secured after feverish bargaining on both sides. How much longer will this type of easy get-out be available to us? Two euros for some short-lived peace and quiet. Wouldn’t it be great if it applied to all aspects of our lives? “This meeting’s gone on too long. I’ll order you a sparkly pen from the stationery catalogue if you shut up”. Turns out they’re two euros each, win one, lose many!

The Eiffel Tower itself is pretty good value. We only go to the first level but the view is excellent. I can’t imagine what more you would be able to see from the second or third level. Perhaps there’s a kind of elevation sightseeing pecking order, there is to most things after all – “hey guys, this dude only saw the Sacre-Coeur from the first level! Can you imagine! Loooooser!”. The kids wangle a go on a telescope which magnifies the view by x0.00001. 

On the stroll back we detour for a trip down the Seine on one of the Bateaux Moches. It’s a great way to combine an hour’s sit down and a quick look around. The commentary along the way now runs to seven languages, running one after the other. This is great if you are Spanish as this is timed to coincide perfectly with the sight in question. Spare a thought for those ever-enthusiastic videographers, the Japanese. Their language came last, leaving them swinging their cameras round frantically to catch the very last glimpse of the famous monument in question, I couldn’t help thinking that anyone watching their ‘holiday video of Paris’ would be mightily unimpressed with the distant, miniature buildings on display. I thought the kids would have been very interested to see Notre Dame but it turns out they hadn’t seen Disney’s “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” so they had no reference point at all!

We concluded by strolling slowly back to the hotel. La Place de la Concord was particularly attractive a night with its brightly lit ferris wheel. It was good not to pack out the day, requiring loads of underground travel by Metro, the kids were pretty exhausted by the end of it anyway.

We only had a short time before our train on our last day, so we checked out of our hotel, left our bags and went for a short walk along the Champs Elysees. I know you pay a little extra for the kind of hotel the Hyatt is (“Do you realise you’re eating a €12 miniature pack of peanuts” I remember asking/accusing my wife, waving the casually discarded mini bar price card) but the location does make a difference. Being in the centre does allow for this kind of short excursion that might be impossible or offer less enticing attractions further out. Similarly it can offer the option of an early evening walk somewhere interesting with the kids knowing you can easily double back if they get too tired. The room service is also of the kind that makes you constantly think you’ve been robbed. Coat on the bed/turn your back/no coat on the bed/coat neatly hung up in wardrobe. Who are these ninja chambermaids?

I have to say the Champs Elysees is pretty dull. Still it’s just a strip of major retailer’s shops so I’m not sure what I was expecting. The thing that does amaze me, it amazes my wife in a different way, is just how many boutique shops there are tucked away in the side streets where we were. Thousands of them! How do they make a living? Well, looking at the price tags, selling one item of clothing a year would probably suffice. Still you only have to look at the Parisians to understand why they flourish. Not a Nike tracksuit in sight. What an elegant bunch. And skinny! I didn’t see an overweight person the whole time I was there. Are they arrested on sight?

And that was that. The kids’ favourite bits? “The Eiffel Tower, it had a shop in it, how crazy is that?!” and “Definitely the hotel, I want to go back and have a proper go in the gym”. At this last comment my wife subtly arches an eyebrow, looks like the “unique” hotels may be a thing of the past. Lastly, a very punctual Eurostar journey back, from a comparatively shabby Gare Du Nord, most people asleep again apart from you know where. Paris to London takes 2 hours 15 minutes, 12 stops on London Underground takes 1 hour, sigh! Still, Paris for the weekend with kids? Sure, why not, great fun and for those close enough to a Eurostar station I might even be crazy enough to suggest you could do it as a day trip. Note: I did say “you”.

   
For information on the new Eurostar services from St Pancras go to

For information on the Hyatt Regency Paris-Madeleine go to –

For visitor information about Paris go to