Today’s guest, Anna Brooke, is the author of several Frommer’s guidebooks to France, including Frommer’s Paris Day by Day.

Paris has always been my city, ever since my parents surprised my brother and I with a trip here as kids. I remember thinking, as we tiptoed over the sprinklers watering the flowerbeds on the Champs Elysées, tasted our first ever croque monsieur (cheese and ham toasty) and stood mesmerized by the firework display at Disneyland Paris, “Why haven’t they brought us here before? There is so much to do!”

It’s true that for all its clichés, Paris is usually thought of as an adult city – a place of romance, fine dining and culture too inaccessible for children. Yet things couldn’t be further from the truth. Families live all over the center, and Parisians like doing nothing more than parading around en famille, so the city is well prepared for families with endless parks, carousels, play areas and museums.

It’s been mighty hard for me to suggest just five family favorites (in fact, you’ll notice I’ve cheated). But these are ours and I hope you’ll love them as much as we do.

1. Best Culture Garden – Musée Rodin

On a sunny day, one of our special treats is a trip to the Rodin Museum’s garden. The museum is set in a stately mansion well worth visiting, but its gardens (completely protected from the outside world, so you don’t have to worry about anyone running out onto the street) are studded with statues that inquisitive fingers can reach out and touch. The whole place is an oasis of calm and the kids line up for ice creams from the garden tearoom.

2. Futuristic Park – Parc de la Villette

Over the last 15 years, certain “unsavory” parts of the city have been completely rehabilitated, so that today’s Paris stands proud with some seriously hip, family-friendly new districts. Parc de la Villette (the city’s former 19th-century Abattoir district in the north-east) is one of them; a futuristic park set along the Ourcq Canal with wide lawns for picnicking, a children’s science museum, the Géode IMAX cinema that looks like a giant silver sphere, a music museum, annual circus, and a summer open-air film festival.

We love getting off the Metro at Jaurès and walking to the park along the canal, past cinemas, bridges, cafés and riverboats.

3. The Old Faithfuls – the Eiffel Tower and Louvre Museum

No matter how touristy and clichéd it may be, the Eiffel Tower is one of those places that should be visited at least once in a lifetime. The views are just so heartwarmingly spectacular, plus it’s hard to beat the thrill (or the panic of having a coronary) of climbing up to the first level with your own legs, or whizzing up to the top in the lift and seeing the kids smile.

As for the Louvre, it is allegedly the biggest museum in the world, so there’s always more to see, even if you’ve been before. This is where Leonardo da Vinci’s world-famous Mona Lisa hangs, and we particularly love the mummies in the Egyptology department and the underground ruins of the medieval Louvre castle.

4. Walking

Strolling along the River Seine isn’t just for lovers. There are families walking up and down its picture-perfect banks, past the iconic bouquinistes (secondhand book dealers), rollerbladers, and cyclists every hour of the day, so join them. In the summer, stretches of the quaysides are closed to traffic and turned into a beach with sandpits and water games.

The city is also famed for its street markets. Walking along the colorful stalls is a great way to introduce the family to the sights and sounds of French living. One of the best markets is on Boulevarde Richard Lenoir near Bastille, where we nearly always have to watch the street performers and ride on the Disney Carousel.

5. Museums and Other Attractions

It would take a lifetime to see everything in Paris. I’ve been here 10 years and still haven’t scraped the surface – even writing guidebooks! However experience has taught me that these are surefire family crowd pleasers:

* Musée d’Histoire Naturelle (Natural History Museum) with its evolution gallery of dinosaur bones and stuffed animals.
* Musée Grevin, set inside an atmospheric 18th-century covered passage with its gallery of international wax-work stars, rather like Madame Tussaud’s.
* Musée Jacquemart André, a stately mansion dripping with fin-de-siècle style art that provides English audio guides for children, activity books and dress-up.
* Disneyland Resort Paris, outside of the city centre, is a carbon copy of America’s Disneylands, but kids get the added excitement of ordering frites, not fries, with their burgers.
* Parc Asterix is France’s excellent answer to Disney, based on the national cartoon hero Astérix the Gaul, with live killer-whale shows and stomach-churning loop-the-loops

All photos courtesy of Anna Brooke.  Frommer’s Paris Day by Day cover courtesy of Frommer’s.

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We’ve got three copies of Frommer’s Paris Day by Day to give away to three lucky readers.  For a chance to win, leave a comment here by midnight, June 17th (U.S. only please).  Bonne courage!

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