The Destination · 10 min read

Our first international trip — a tenth birthday, a city our daughter had loved for years before she ever saw it, and everything we learned the hard way.

Paris was a promise.

Our daughter had loved the idea of it for years before we ever booked a flight — the way certain children latch onto a place and carry it around like a secret. When she turned ten we decided it was time to make good on it. Paris for her birthday. Our first international trip as a family. We had no idea what we were doing, and it was perfect.

Where We Stayed

We stayed in Airbnbs for this trip, which is not typically our preference — we are hotel people by nature and by inclination. But Paris made a case for it. The first half of the trip we were in the 3rd arrondissement, and when we returned from London we stayed in the 4th, closer to the Île de la Cité. Both put us squarely in the Marais, one of the most beautiful and walkable neighborhoods in the city — medieval streets, extraordinary architecture, the kind of neighborhood that rewards simply moving through it without a particular destination in mind.

For a first Paris trip, especially with a child, the Marais is the right place to be. We stand by the Airbnb decision for this particular trip even if it wouldn’t be our first call everywhere.

Arrival Day

We landed tired in the way that transatlantic travel with a ten-year-old makes you tired — thoroughly, completely, in need of pastries immediately. The Airbnb wasn’t ready yet so we found a nearby bakery, bought whatever looked best, and sat somewhere and ate it. This is, it turns out, a completely acceptable way to begin a Paris trip. We went back to the apartment, took a long nap, and woke up to the city in the late afternoon.

The first evening we wandered. No agenda, no reservations — just the streets of the 3rd, following whatever looked interesting, ending up at a small restaurant nearby that we found by walking past it and deciding it looked right. It was. That instinct — to trust the city, to let it show you things rather than consulting a list — is one of the best lessons Paris teaches, and we learned it on the first night.

Sainte-Chapelle

If you go to Paris and see only one thing, see Sainte-Chapelle.

We went on our first full morning, before the crowds built, and nothing we had read or seen prepared us for what is inside. The stained glass windows of the upper chapel are among the most beautiful things we have ever encountered — fifteen floor-to-ceiling panels of colored light that turn the entire room into something that doesn’t feel entirely of this world. Our daughter, who had been excited about Paris for years, went completely quiet.

We have been in many beautiful spaces before and since. Sainte-Chapelle is in a category of its own. Reserve your tickets in advance and go early.

Walking to the Eiffel Tower

We decided to walk to the Eiffel Tower from the Marais rather than take the metro, which we did not fully appreciate would be as long a walk as it turned out to be. It was significantly further than we expected.

We are glad we did it anyway.

The walk took us through neighborhood after neighborhood — streets that no guidebook sent us to, corners we would never have found otherwise, the particular texture of Paris that exists between the landmarks. We stopped when something caught our attention. We sat when we needed to. By the time the tower appeared we had already had most of a day’s worth of the city, and the tower itself, which can feel overwhelming up close, felt like a natural end point to a long and satisfying walk rather than a destination in its own right.

We did not go up. We saved that decision for the Arc de Triomphe later in the trip — more on that below — and it was the right call.

The Palais Garnier

We toured the interior of the Palais Garnier, the opera house that served as the inspiration for The Phantom of the Opera, and came away with one overriding impression: we have never seen so much gold in our lives. The opulence is genuinely difficult to process. Every surface, every ceiling, every staircase — the grand foyer alone contains more gilded detail than most buildings contain of anything. It is excessive in the most magnificent possible way.

If you have any interest in architecture, interiors, or simply in things that are almost comically beautiful, tour the Palais Garnier. The guided tour is worth it for the grand staircase alone.

Sacré-Cœur and the Cathedrals

From the Palais Garnier we made our way up to Montmartre to visit Sacré-Cœur. The climb is real — the neighborhood sits on the highest point in the city and the approach up the steps is not nothing — but the view from the top and the interior of the basilica are both worth it. The neighborhood around it, with its winding streets and artists and market stalls, is a full afternoon on its own.

One of the things that surprised us most about Paris was how many extraordinary churches and cathedrals exist beyond the famous ones. We spent an entire afternoon visiting one after another — some well-known, some completely unmarked on any tourist map — and every single one was stunning. Gothic vaulting, extraordinary windows, centuries of accumulated beauty sitting quietly in the middle of ordinary neighborhoods. In Paris, the remarkable is simply part of the fabric of the city.

Père Lachaise Cemetery

We made a specific trip to Père Lachaise, and it requires a small explanation for anyone who finds a cemetery an unusual choice for a family itinerary.

Our daughter at the time was deep into the Fantastic Beasts films, and Père Lachaise appears in them — that was the original motivation. But the cemetery gave us something much more than a filming location. It is where Frédéric Chopin is buried, and as a family that loves his music, standing at his grave was genuinely moving. It is also simply one of the most beautiful places we visited in Paris.

Père Lachaise is nothing like an American cemetery. It is a city within the city — winding cobblestone paths, elaborate mausoleums, overgrown monuments, the quiet of a place that has been accumulating history for two hundred years. We wandered it for hours and left feeling that we had seen something rare. It belongs on any Paris itinerary, full stop.

Notre-Dame

We had planned to go inside Notre-Dame. We had planned to climb the bell tower and attend a Mass. When we landed in Paris for the second half of our trip, Notre-Dame Cathedral had been on fire for a week.

We walked all the way around the outside of it. The barriers were still up, the damage still raw, the air around it still carrying something that was hard to name — grief, maybe, or the particular weight of being present at a wound in history that the whole world was watching from a distance and we happened to be standing next to. Our daughter understood what she was looking at. We all did.

It was not the visit we had planned. It was something else — something we could not have anticipated and will not forget. Paris has a way of giving you things you didn’t know you were going to receive.

Notre-Dame has since been restored and reopened. If you are planning a Paris trip now, go. Go to the Mass. Climb the bell tower. We intend to, when we go back.

The Arc de Triomphe

Going up on top of the Arc de Triomphe instead of the Eiffel Tower was one of the best decisions we made on this trip, and we made it on the advice of several things we had read before leaving.

The views from the top are extraordinary — the twelve avenues radiating out from the Place de l’Étoile, the city laid out in every direction, the Eiffel Tower visible in the distance at exactly the right scale. It is worth every step of the climb. If you are deciding between the two, we would choose the Arc de Triomphe without hesitation.

The Catacombs

The Paris Catacombs require their own explanation, because taking a child into an underground ossuary containing the remains of millions of people is not an obvious itinerary choice.

Our daughter had become fascinated by the catacombs through one of her beloved Samantha American Girl books, in which they feature as a plot point. She had wanted to go for years. We went.

It is unlike anything else we have ever done. The descent underground, the tunnels, the silence, the sheer scale of what is down there — it is not dark in a frightening way but in a profound one. It is a reminder of deep time, of the city that exists beneath the city, of the layers of history that Paris contains that most places simply do not. Our daughter was fascinated throughout. So were we.

Book tickets well in advance. The line without a reservation is not worth attempting.

The Jardin du Luxembourg

On one of our last afternoons we found our way to the Jardin du Luxembourg and spent a long time there doing very little. The pond at the center of the garden — where children rent small wooden sailboats and send them across the water with long sticks — is one of the most purely charming things Paris offers. We watched it for longer than made any practical sense.

The Luxembourg Palace sits behind it, the garden stretches out in every direction, and the whole scene has the quality of something that has been exactly this way for a very long time and intends to remain so. It is the kind of place that makes you understand why people spend their whole lives trying to get back to Paris.

The Louvre — What We Got Wrong

We saved the Louvre for last, which in retrospect was a mistake, and we made a second mistake by not reserving tickets in advance on the assumption that the time of year was slightly less busy.

It was not less busy. The line was hours long — at minimum three, possibly more — and by the time we reached the front we would have had almost no time inside. We made the decision to leave without going in.

Our daughter was heartbroken. We understood completely.

What we did instead was spend a long time in the Tuileries Garden surrounding the Louvre, which is — and we say this as people who were genuinely disappointed to miss the museum — absolutely stunning on its own terms. The garden is formal and beautiful and completely worth an afternoon. After that we wandered into the charming toy shops that surround the area, because Paris is full of them, and the afternoon recovered itself.

The lesson: book the Louvre first, before anything else. Do not assume the line will be manageable. It will not be.

The Last Day

We spent our last day the way we had spent much of the trip — walking, slowly, without a particular destination. Along the Seine, past the famous art displays that line the river, through streets we hadn’t seen yet. Paris rewards this. The city has enough beauty distributed across enough surface area that you can walk it for days and keep finding things.

It was our first international trip. There was a learning curve — the Louvre, the Notre-Dame timing, the walk to the Eiffel Tower that was longer than advertised. We made every first-timer’s mistake at least once. We also stood in Sainte-Chapelle and watched our daughter go quiet in front of the most beautiful windows in the world. We stood outside Notre-Dame a week after the fire. We found Chopin’s grave. We went down into the earth beneath the city.

We considered the trip a very large success.

A Few Things We’d Tell You

Reserve Sainte-Chapelle in advance and go early. Book the Louvre before you book anything else. Go up the Arc de Triomphe instead of the Eiffel Tower. Walk more than you think you need to — the streets between the landmarks are the point. Trust the city. Let it show you things.

And if you can, go in spring. Paris in April, even with a learning curve, is Paris.