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Top Kids’ Sights and Activities
With relatively few must-see museums, plenty of outdoor activities, and cooperative weather, Provence and the French Riviera are practically made for kids. This part of France has beaches, fun canoeing on safe rivers, good biking, Roman ruins to scramble over, abundant sunshine, and swimming pools everywhere. Teenagers love the seaside resorts (Cassis and Antibes are best) and enjoy the hustle and bustle of cities like Avignon, Arles, Aix-en-Provence, and Nice. Younger kids tend to prefer the rural areas, which offer more swimming pools, open spaces, and parks.
Involve your kids in trip planning. Have them read about the places that you may include in your itinerary (even the hotels you’re considering), and let them help with your decisions.
• Hotel selection is critical. In my recommendations, I’ve identified hotels that seem particularly kid-friendly (pools, table tennis, grassy areas, easygoing owners, etc.). Most hotels have some sort of crib you can use.
• Minimize hotel changes by planning three-day stays.
• Aim for hotels with restaurants, so older kids can go back to the room while you finish a pleasant dinner.
• If you’re staying for a week or more in one place, a great option is to rent an apartment, a house, or a gîte (see “Gîtes” on here).
• Don’t bother bringing a car seat—car-rental agencies usually rent them, though you must reserve one in advance.
• Bring your own drawing supplies and English-language picture books, as these supplies are pricey in France.
• If your kids love peanut butter, bring it from home (hard to find in France).
Provence offers plenty of food options for children.
• Kid-friendly foods that are commonly available and easy to order include crêpes (available at many takeout stands), croque monsieurs (grilled ham and cheese sandwiches), and tartines (open-faced sandwiches). Plain pasta is available at many cafés and some bistros (ask for pâtes nature). Carry a baguette to snack on. In the south of France, pizza is omnipresent.
• For breakfast, try a pain au chocolat (chocolate-filled pastry) or dip your baguette in a chocolat chaud (hot chocolate). Fruit, cereals, and yogurt are usually available.
• Help your kids acquire a taste for Nutella, the tasty hazelnut-chocolate spread available everywhere. Look for organic (bio) stores in cities, where you can find numerous nut butters and Chocolade, a less-sugary version of Nutella.
• For a refreshing drink, kids enjoy Sirop de Provence, a concentrated syrup that comes in many flavors like grenadine, violet, rose, lavender, and strawberry, and is mixed with sparkling water.
• For older kids, be aware that the drinking age is 16 for beer and wine and 18 for the hard stuff: Your waiter will assume that your teen will have wine with you at dinner. Teens are also welcome in most bars and lounges (there’s no 21-and-older section).
• Eat dinner early (restaurants open for dinner at 19:00-19:30, cafés open earlier).
• Skip romantic eateries. Try relaxed cafés (or fast-food restaurants) where kids can move around without bothering others.
• Picnics work well. Boulangeries are good places to grab off-hour snacks when restaurants aren’t serving. (See here for picnic tips.)
The key to a successful Provence family vacation is to slow down. Tackle one or two key sights each day, mix in a healthy dose of pure fun at a park or square, and take extended breaks when needed.
• Lower your sightseeing ambitions and let kids help choose daily activities. Plan longer stays at fewer stops—you won’t regret it.
• To make your trip fun for everyone in the family, mix heavy-duty sights with kids’ activities, such as playing mini-golf or pétanque, renting bikes or canoes, and riding the little tourist trains popular in many towns.
• Older kids and teens can help plan the details of a museum visit, such as what to see, how to get there, and ticketing details.
• Museum audioguides are great for older children. For younger children, hit the gift shop first so they can buy postcards and have a scavenger hunt to find the pictured artwork. When boredom sets in, try “I spy” games or have them count how many babies or dogs they can spot in all the paintings in the room.
• Bring a sketchbook to a museum and encourage kids to select a painting or statue to draw. It’s a great way for them to slow down and observe.
• If you’re in France near Bastille Day, remember that fireworks stands pop up everywhere on the days leading up to July 14. Putting on their own fireworks show can be a highlight for teenagers.
• Buy your child a trip journal, where he or she can record observations, thoughts, and favorite sights and memories. This journal could end up being your child’s favorite souvenir.
• For a group project, keep a family journal. Pack a small diary and a glue stick. While relaxing at a café over a citron-pressé (lemonade), take turns writing about the day’s events and include mementos such as ticket stubs from museums, postcards, or stalks of lavender.
• Let kids pick out some toys and books. The best and cheapest toy selections are usually in department stores, like Monoprix and Galeries Lafayette. Note that Legos are sometimes different in Europe than in the US, and the French have wonderful doll clothes with a much wider selection than typically found in the US. Kids like the French adventure comics Astérix and Tintin (both available in English, sold in bigger bookstores with English sections).
Before your trip gets underway, talk to your kids about safety and money.
• Give your child a money belt and an expanded allowance; you are on vacation, after all. Let your kids budget their funds by comparing and contrasting the dollar and euro.
• If you allow older kids to explore a museum or neighborhood on their own, be sure to establish a clear meeting time and place.
• Have a “what if” procedure in place in case something goes wrong. Give your kids your hotel’s business card, your phone number (if you brought a mobile phone), and emergency taxi fare. Let them know to ask to use the phone at a hotel if they are lost. And if they have mobile phones, show them how to make calls in France (see here).
• If traveling with older kids, you can help them keep in touch with friends at home with cheap texting plans and by email. Hotel guest computers and Wi-Fi hotspots are a godsend. Readily available Wi-Fi (at TIs, train stations, hotels, some cafés, and all Starbucks and McDonald’s) makes bringing a mobile device worthwhile. Most parents find it worth the peace of mind to buy a supplemental messaging plan for the whole family: Adults can stay connected to teenagers while allowing them maximum independence (see here).
These are listed in no particular order:
• Pont du Gard. An entire wing of the museum is dedicated to kids, who can also swim or take a canoe trip on the river nearby (see here).
• Cassis. Boat trip to the calanques, or the port and beaches for teenagers (see here).
• Monaco. Changing of the Guard in Monaco (see here) and Oceanography Museum (see here).
• Pedal boats on the Mediterranean (in Cassis; see here) and into the Grand Canyon du Verdon (from Lac de St-Croix; see here).
• Biking or in-line skating on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice (see here).
• Biking through vineyards to small villages, from Vaison-la-Romaine (see here).
• Les Baux’s castle ruins, with medieval weaponry and great walls to climb (see here).
• Canoeing on the Ardèche River (see here) or the Sorgue River (see here).
• Boat trips from Nice (see here), Villefranche-sur-Mer (see here), or St-Tropez (see here).
Honorable mention goes to Arles’ Ancient History Museum (see here), horseback riding and public beaches in the Camargue (see here), Roman arenas in Nîmes (see here) and Arles (see here), the beaches of Antibes (see here), and the narrow-gauge train ride from Nice (see here).
It’s fun to take kids to movies (even if not in English) just to see how theaters work elsewhere. Movies shown in their original language—usually with subtitles—are listed as v.o. at the box office. (One showing could be v.o. and the next could be dubbed in French, labeled v.f.; be aware that v.o. movies are hard to find outside major cities.) Dessin animé means “cartoon.” While many live-action movies can be found in their original language with French subtitles, cartoons and kids’ movies (intended for an audience that doesn’t read so well yet) are almost always dubbed.
I’ve listed swimming pools in many places—they’re great for kids. But be warned: Public pools in France commonly require a small, Speedo-like bathing suit for boys and men (American-style swim trunks won’t do)—though they usually have these little suits for sale. At hotel pools, any type of swimsuit will do.
You’ll find old-style merry-go-rounds in many cities, perfect for young travelers (my daughter’s goal a few years back was to ride a merry-go-round in every town...she came close). There are also little tourist trains in nearly every city.
Visits to local goat-cheese makers in early spring yield good kid rewards (look for fromage fermier de chèvre signs along the country roads). Goats are social animals and goat-cheese makers will usually let your child hold or pet one. You can also pick up some superb fresh cheese for your picnic.
Consider buying a set of boules (a.k.a. pétanque, a form of outdoor bowling—for the rules, see sidebar on here). Play boules before dinner, side by side with real players on the village court. Get your boules de pétanque at sporting-goods stores or larger department stores. Some hotels have pétanque areas and balls, but you can play anywhere level with dirt or light gravel. Since they’re heavy, buy a set only if you’ll be driving. The boules also make fun, if weighty, souvenirs, and are just as enjoyable to play back at home. TIs in some towns, such as Vence, have boules to rent.