An early train or a short drive gets you out of the city and back before bedtime. These are the trips we'd plan for a free weekend day: palaces with gardens big enough to run in, castles and old towns to explore, animals and open countryside. Pick one by how far you want to travel and how much walking your kids will take.
A medieval fortress, wrecked in 1617 and rebuilt from 1857 by Viollet-le-Duc for Napoleon III as a storybook castle.
Kids cross the bridges into the courtyard, then go down a lit staircase to the cellars, where about 100 plaster effigies of French kings and queens lie under shifting lights and whispered poems. A 5-hectare wooded park wraps around the walls, with cannonballs still stuck in one tower.
A 17th-century château on a terraced 9-hectare estate in Auvers-sur-Oise, the village where Van Gogh spent his last weeks. Inside are a Van Gogh exhibition and a display on the estate's history. Outside are French formal gardens, a nymphaeum, a maze and 23,000 irises.
Kids can work through a game booklet, run the maze, and join art workshops during school holidays.
Provins is a walled medieval market town, UNESCO-listed as the only surviving fair town of the Champagne region. Kids can walk the ramparts and fortified gates, climb the 12th-century Cesar Tower, and follow a guide through the underground galleries beneath the streets.
Knights and falconers with birds of prey put on shows at the foot of the walls, and a tourist train takes the hills off tired walkers.
Vaux-le-Vicomte is a 17th-century château built for Nicolas Fouquet, set in the first great formal French garden, laid out by André Le Nôtre. Kids can rent period costumes to tour the rooms, climb to the top of the dome, and visit the Carriage Museum.
In the woods, the Iron Mask trail runs through a vaulted underground passage, and the Sounding Forest plays La Fontaine fables from inside the trees.
A château full of old-master paintings, three gardens and the Great Stables, built in the 1700s as a palace for horses, share one estate. Inside the stables, the Living Museum of the Horse fills 15 rooms, and a resident riding troupe performs under the great dome.
Kids can watch a narrated 30-minute riding demonstration, then run the paths of Le Nôtre's formal garden, the Anglo-Chinese garden and the English garden.
French kings lived here from the Middle Ages to Napoleon III, and Napoleon I said goodbye to his guard in the courtyard below the horseshoe staircase. Inside, kids walk the gilded Grands Appartements and the Napoleon I Museum.
Outside are the 14-hectare Grand Parterre, a carp pond with a pavilion in the water, and a 1.2km canal lined with paths. It's about an hour's drive from Paris.
Louis XIV's royal palace holds the Hall of Mirrors, the royal apartments and the Royal Chapel. Behind it, formal gardens with fountains and statues run down to the Grand Canal and a huge park. Across the estate, the Trianon has Marie Antoinette's smaller palaces and the Queen's Hamlet, a mock country village.
It suits school-age kids who can handle crowds and long walks; toddlers do better in the gardens.
Thoiry has two parts. First, an 8 km safari loop that families drive in their own car, windows closed, past zebras, giraffes, rhinos, elephants and bears.
Then a 90-hectare walking zoo with more than 750 animals, a lemur island and a gorilla area, plus play areas: the Safari Air Park, a giant maze and the Île Mystérieuse. No car? Bush trucks run the safari loop, lions included.
An early train or a short drive gets you out of the city and back before bedtime. These are the trips we'd plan for a free weekend day: palaces with gardens big enough to run in, castles and old towns to explore, animals and open countryside. Pick one by how far you want to travel and how much walking your kids will take.
A medieval fortress, wrecked in 1617 and rebuilt from 1857 by Viollet-le-Duc for Napoleon III as a storybook castle.
Kids cross the bridges into the courtyard, then go down a lit staircase to the cellars, where about 100 plaster effigies of French kings and queens lie under shifting lights and whispered poems. A 5-hectare wooded park wraps around the walls, with cannonballs still stuck in one tower.
A 17th-century château on a terraced 9-hectare estate in Auvers-sur-Oise, the village where Van Gogh spent his last weeks. Inside are a Van Gogh exhibition and a display on the estate's history. Outside are French formal gardens, a nymphaeum, a maze and 23,000 irises.
Kids can work through a game booklet, run the maze, and join art workshops during school holidays.
Provins is a walled medieval market town, UNESCO-listed as the only surviving fair town of the Champagne region. Kids can walk the ramparts and fortified gates, climb the 12th-century Cesar Tower, and follow a guide through the underground galleries beneath the streets.
Knights and falconers with birds of prey put on shows at the foot of the walls, and a tourist train takes the hills off tired walkers.
Vaux-le-Vicomte is a 17th-century château built for Nicolas Fouquet, set in the first great formal French garden, laid out by André Le Nôtre. Kids can rent period costumes to tour the rooms, climb to the top of the dome, and visit the Carriage Museum.
In the woods, the Iron Mask trail runs through a vaulted underground passage, and the Sounding Forest plays La Fontaine fables from inside the trees.
A château full of old-master paintings, three gardens and the Great Stables, built in the 1700s as a palace for horses, share one estate. Inside the stables, the Living Museum of the Horse fills 15 rooms, and a resident riding troupe performs under the great dome.
Kids can watch a narrated 30-minute riding demonstration, then run the paths of Le Nôtre's formal garden, the Anglo-Chinese garden and the English garden.
French kings lived here from the Middle Ages to Napoleon III, and Napoleon I said goodbye to his guard in the courtyard below the horseshoe staircase. Inside, kids walk the gilded Grands Appartements and the Napoleon I Museum.
Outside are the 14-hectare Grand Parterre, a carp pond with a pavilion in the water, and a 1.2km canal lined with paths. It's about an hour's drive from Paris.
Louis XIV's royal palace holds the Hall of Mirrors, the royal apartments and the Royal Chapel. Behind it, formal gardens with fountains and statues run down to the Grand Canal and a huge park. Across the estate, the Trianon has Marie Antoinette's smaller palaces and the Queen's Hamlet, a mock country village.
It suits school-age kids who can handle crowds and long walks; toddlers do better in the gardens.
Thoiry has two parts. First, an 8 km safari loop that families drive in their own car, windows closed, past zebras, giraffes, rhinos, elephants and bears.
Then a 90-hectare walking zoo with more than 750 animals, a lemur island and a gorilla area, plus play areas: the Safari Air Park, a giant maze and the Île Mystérieuse. No car? Bush trucks run the safari loop, lions included.
