A March Break trip to Paris needed to include visiting the museums of Paris with the kids. There are so many museums in the city, each with their own unique art and history on display. Here is how we made the most of visiting the museums of Paris with kids.
One of the best things about visiting most of the sites and museums in Paris, is that they are FREE for kids! I was so pleasantly surprised when I discovered this amazing news. I was expecting a reduced rate, but not free!
For the over 18 year old crowd, we purchased a Paris Museum Pass. The Paris Museum Pass is sold as a two, four or six day pass that covers unlimited entry to over 50 museums and monuments in and around Paris. It also grants you direct access at the museums and sites without having to queue for tickets. There are still the security lines to manage but those move quite quickly. Depending on how many museums and sites you plan to visit, the savings can be really big!
Since the pass includes an unlimited number of visits and since the savings are quite large, it helps justify spending only an hour at a museum with kids that can’t handle much more than that! You can go back the next day to tackle a different wing of the museum or, you can go to a museum to see just one painting that you are interested in. We literally visited three museums in one day and I knew I was still getting my money’s worth!
You can purchase the pass at any of the museums or sites, or at various certified retailers dotted around the city. You simply sign and date the back of the pass and away you go!
There are so many museums in Paris to visit that we simply couldn’t visit them all. We narrowed it down to three: Musee de Louvre, Musee d’Orsay and Musee de l’Orangerie.
Musee de Louvre
The first museum we visited in Paris was the massive Musee de Louvre. Once the palace of royalty, it now houses 5,000 years of history under one roof. The Louvre can be overwhelming, crowded and easy to get lost in. There is no way you could ever see it all in one trip! I was a little worried about how the kids would handle it, to be honest. I wanted to keep it simple and focus on the sites I knew they would be interested in. Since the Ancient Egyptian wing was unfortunately closed during our visit (total bummer!), we opted to focus on Greek sculpture, Italian paintings and the actual palace itself.
Highlights included the French crown jewels, Venus de Milo, Winged Victory of Samothrace and of course the Mona Lisa.
I will admit openly that we downloaded Rick Steve’s Audio Europe App before we left home which has audio tours for a lot of the museums and sites in Paris. His Louvre guided tour was actually really useful and we used it to navigate the highlights of the Louvre in one and a half hours! Yup, that’s how long we spent in the Louvre! You may be thinking that it is a ridiculously short time to spend in the world’s largest museum, but I needed to preserve the kids’ stamina and they just don’t have the ability to spend hours and hours in a museum. We covered the basics and they left with smiles on their faces. For me, that is a win!
Musee d’Orsay
The second museum we visited in Paris was Musee d’Orsay. It picks up where the Louvre leaves off. The collection spans the years 1848-1914 and features the best general collection of Impressionist Paintings anywhere. To top it off, it’s located in an old train station that is absolutely beautiful!
I personally prefer this museum to the Louvre as it feels calmer and more manageable. We didn’t see everything this museum has to offer but we saw a lot. We downloaded Rick Steve’s audio tour on our personal devices before we left home and enjoyed Manet, Monet, Van Gogh and Cezzanne at our own pace. It was great!
The original train station clocks were showstoppers for me. There are two glass clocks on the fifth floor with breathtaking views over the Seine to the Tuilleries Gardens.
The Main Gallery is topped with the original gilded clock that serviced the terminal platform when the building still functioned as a bustling train station.
Musee de l’Orangerie
The third museum we visited was the Musee de l’Orangerie. This museum is best known for showcasing Claude Monet’s Water Lilies. The building is a restored greenhouse once used in the off season for storing the orange trees ornamenting the Tuilleries Gardens. When the decision was made to restore the greenhouse into a museum, Claude Monet himself designed two rooms to house and display his Water Lily Panels. The rooms are filled with natural light and the paintings wrap around the room begging to be walked past as if you are strolling through Monet’s gardens in Giverny. It is the most breathtaking display!
The kids and I loved it as we had studied Monet and Impressionism before we left home. Seeing his work on such a large scale in real life was really a treat!
Although this is a small museum, it is totally worth the visit for these paintings alone! There are more paintings on the lower floor of the museum as well, but we came just for the showstopper…Monet!
For our first visit to Paris, these three museums ticked all of the boxes. We learned something new from each of them and we left with our love for museums still in tact! Mission accomplished for visiting the museums of Paris with kids!
perhaps you’ve already seen them, but Monty Don has a series on Netflix entitled Gardens of Italy and Gardens of France. there’s one with the museums where you saw Water Lilies…I think you and the kids would love it.