Some museums are built for kids to touch, test and climb inside, and these are the ones they ask to see again: hands-on science, giant skeletons, ships, planes they can walk through and a wax museum full of their heroes. Here's what we checked, from the Cité des Enfants to the Air and Space Museum. Bring snacks and plan on a long visit.
A science museum in a huge glass-and-steel hall on the edge of Parc de la Villette. Kids push, pull and test their way through hands-on permanent and temporary exhibitions, sit under the planetarium dome, and walk through the Argonaute, a real navy submarine.
The Cité des enfants has two timed play areas, one for preschoolers and one for school-age kids, built around water play, a forest and a building site.
Two hands-on play spaces inside the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie at Parc de la Villette, each split into themed zones. The younger side has a forest, an elastic climbing course, a building site and an air-and-water area.
The older side has water games, a tilted park full of soil creatures, a funfair of brain and body challenges, a tinkering workshop and a Weird House of puzzles.
The Grande Galerie de l'Évolution is the Natural History Museum's main hall at the Jardin des Plantes, an 1889 iron-and-glass nave holding about 7,000 specimens. Downstairs, whales and a giant squid loom over sea life. Upstairs, an elephant leads a parade of savannah animals, and the lights and soundtrack run from dawn to a passing storm. A room of threatened and extinct species holds a giant panda and a Tasmanian tiger.
France's national aviation museum fills 12 halls and an outdoor tarmac at Le Bourget airport with more than 100 aircraft, from the first flying machines and a Spitfire to two Concordes.
Kids can walk inside a Boeing 747, play pilot or astronaut at Planète Pilote's 40 hands-on stations, catch a planetarium show, and climb the restored 1953 control tower for a view over the runways.
The Musée des Arts et Métiers holds more than 2,400 inventions across seven collections, from scientific instruments to transport. The standout room is the former church of Saint-Martin-des-Champs, where early planes hang over vintage cars and Foucault's pendulum swings in the nave.
Kids can also find Bartholdi's original model of the Statue of Liberty and Pascal's mechanical calculator, and museum staff run demonstrations in the galleries.
A wax museum on the Grands Boulevards where kids pose next to life-size figures of footballers, singers and cartoon heroes like Paw Patrol, Miraculous and the Little Prince.
A walk-through history section runs from the Chauvet cave to Louis XIV's court and Napoleon, and there's a new One Piece area. Many figures are French TV stars, so visiting kids may know mostly the athletes and cartoons.
The navy and seafaring museum in the Palais de Chaillot shows more than 1,000 objects across themed galleries. Kids walk into a life-size ship's prow under a dome film of the sea, step inside a giant wave in the shipwrecks room, and study ship models nearly 5 meters long, gilded figureheads, compasses and lighthouse lenses.
A family trail marked with flags runs through the route.
The Musée de l'Armée fills the Hôtel des Invalides with French military history, from medieval suits of armor and samurai gear to the Napoleonic era and both world wars. Cannons line the main courtyard, and Napoleon's tomb sits under the golden Dôme. The Plans-Reliefs museum shows giant scale models of fortified towns.
Kids who like knights and battles get the most from it; the world war galleries suit older children.
A private museum of fairground rides, automatons and show objects from the 19th and early 20th centuries, set in Bercy's old wine pavilions. Guides who double as performers lead every visit, start up the musical automatons and invite visitors onto century-old carousels, including a merry-go-round turned by pedaling bicycles.
The halls include a Belle Epoque funfair and a little Venice with its own lagoon.
The Musée de l'Homme tells the story of our species in a 2,500 m² gallery that looks out over the Seine to the Eiffel Tower. Kids come face to face with Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon skulls, a Peruvian mummy and a painted Senegalese bus, listen at a wall of world languages, and try sensory stations along the way.
Musée en Herbe is a small art museum made for kids and the adults with them, with a playful, hands-on take on art. The current show, marking 30 years of Pokémon, sends kids on a treasure hunt past rare cards, giant Game Boys and works by Takashi Murakami and Daniel Arsham.
Art workshops for toddlers and older kids run alongside the visit.
Some museums are built for kids to touch, test and climb inside, and these are the ones they ask to see again: hands-on science, giant skeletons, ships, planes they can walk through and a wax museum full of their heroes. Here's what we checked, from the Cité des Enfants to the Air and Space Museum. Bring snacks and plan on a long visit.
A science museum in a huge glass-and-steel hall on the edge of Parc de la Villette. Kids push, pull and test their way through hands-on permanent and temporary exhibitions, sit under the planetarium dome, and walk through the Argonaute, a real navy submarine.
The Cité des enfants has two timed play areas, one for preschoolers and one for school-age kids, built around water play, a forest and a building site.
Two hands-on play spaces inside the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie at Parc de la Villette, each split into themed zones. The younger side has a forest, an elastic climbing course, a building site and an air-and-water area.
The older side has water games, a tilted park full of soil creatures, a funfair of brain and body challenges, a tinkering workshop and a Weird House of puzzles.
The Grande Galerie de l'Évolution is the Natural History Museum's main hall at the Jardin des Plantes, an 1889 iron-and-glass nave holding about 7,000 specimens. Downstairs, whales and a giant squid loom over sea life. Upstairs, an elephant leads a parade of savannah animals, and the lights and soundtrack run from dawn to a passing storm. A room of threatened and extinct species holds a giant panda and a Tasmanian tiger.
France's national aviation museum fills 12 halls and an outdoor tarmac at Le Bourget airport with more than 100 aircraft, from the first flying machines and a Spitfire to two Concordes.
Kids can walk inside a Boeing 747, play pilot or astronaut at Planète Pilote's 40 hands-on stations, catch a planetarium show, and climb the restored 1953 control tower for a view over the runways.
The Musée des Arts et Métiers holds more than 2,400 inventions across seven collections, from scientific instruments to transport. The standout room is the former church of Saint-Martin-des-Champs, where early planes hang over vintage cars and Foucault's pendulum swings in the nave.
Kids can also find Bartholdi's original model of the Statue of Liberty and Pascal's mechanical calculator, and museum staff run demonstrations in the galleries.
A wax museum on the Grands Boulevards where kids pose next to life-size figures of footballers, singers and cartoon heroes like Paw Patrol, Miraculous and the Little Prince.
A walk-through history section runs from the Chauvet cave to Louis XIV's court and Napoleon, and there's a new One Piece area. Many figures are French TV stars, so visiting kids may know mostly the athletes and cartoons.
The navy and seafaring museum in the Palais de Chaillot shows more than 1,000 objects across themed galleries. Kids walk into a life-size ship's prow under a dome film of the sea, step inside a giant wave in the shipwrecks room, and study ship models nearly 5 meters long, gilded figureheads, compasses and lighthouse lenses.
A family trail marked with flags runs through the route.
The Musée de l'Armée fills the Hôtel des Invalides with French military history, from medieval suits of armor and samurai gear to the Napoleonic era and both world wars. Cannons line the main courtyard, and Napoleon's tomb sits under the golden Dôme. The Plans-Reliefs museum shows giant scale models of fortified towns.
Kids who like knights and battles get the most from it; the world war galleries suit older children.
A private museum of fairground rides, automatons and show objects from the 19th and early 20th centuries, set in Bercy's old wine pavilions. Guides who double as performers lead every visit, start up the musical automatons and invite visitors onto century-old carousels, including a merry-go-round turned by pedaling bicycles.
The halls include a Belle Epoque funfair and a little Venice with its own lagoon.
The Musée de l'Homme tells the story of our species in a 2,500 m² gallery that looks out over the Seine to the Eiffel Tower. Kids come face to face with Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon skulls, a Peruvian mummy and a painted Senegalese bus, listen at a wall of world languages, and try sensory stations along the way.
Musée en Herbe is a small art museum made for kids and the adults with them, with a playful, hands-on take on art. The current show, marking 30 years of Pokémon, sends kids on a treasure hunt past rare cards, giant Game Boys and works by Takashi Murakami and Daniel Arsham.
Art workshops for toddlers and older kids run alongside the visit.
