European Vacation with 5 Kids - Brussels & Paris
The fall is a particularly busy season for our family with 6 birthdays, holidays, sports and my busiest time of the year for work. So, 4 months later, I am finally getting to posting about our final leg of our European adventure! If you missed the other posts, you can read about Barcelona here, Nice, Monaco, & Miilan here, and Zurich, Munich, & Amsterdam here.
The final legs of our trip included a quick one night stop in Brussels and then a week in Paris.
Brussels
Where We Stayed: Yooma Urban Lodge
How Long We Stayed: 1 Night
Favorite Outing: Coudenberg Palace
Favorite Restaurant: None
What We’d Do Differently: Pick a different city in Belgium to visit!
Brussels was without a doubt everyone’s least favorite stop of the trip. We love cities and are no strangers to navigating public transportation and sketchy streets, but Brussels left us feeling uneasy from the moment we got there. Naturally, I do recognize that we had a series of unfortunate events happen in our short stay in Brussels which did not help this sentiment. We dropped our luggage at the hotel (which was the only thing we loved about Brussels!) and ventured out to explore the city. Right away, Luca’s leg got stuck in the metro turnstile door and sliced up his leg from knee to ankle. We got through that debacle and were about to step onto to the train when someone attempted to pickpocket me. I know I must have looked like a very easy target - clear tourist, herd of small children to look after, but I felt this man’ hand slide into my pocket and take my phone out. I immediately whipped around and screamed at the top of my lungs, “NO!!” I yelled at this thief like he was a 4 year old child misbeving. I screamed at him, “No! You do NOT take my phone from me. You give it back to me RIGHT NOW.” And as everyone on the crowded platform and train stopped and stared, lo and behold, this man did in fact give me my phone back, which resulted in applause from the crowd. you never really know how you would react in that situation, but apparently one should not poke the Mama Bear.
From there, we were all very shaken up. We rallied and continued on, trying to make the best of the day. We ate frites and and belgian waffles and were honestly unimpressed.
We rode on the Poelart Place Ferris Wheel and it rained on us.
We explored the underground Coudenberg Palace. And after that, we decided we had had enough of Brussels and were content to just call it and hang at the hotel the rest of the day. Our hotel was a cartoon themed hotel with a fun kids room, a giant lounge where we ordered in pizza and hung out, and a fun family hotel room with double bunk beds built into the wall. Jackson still says there was one good part of Brussels, and that was all piling into one bed and watching Finding Ohana together.
The next morning, we paid a little extra to get on an earlier train to Paris, as we couldn’t get out of Brussels fast enough! In true Brussels fashion, this did not go as plan. Our train ended up being delayed for 6 hours. The delay also never updated the expected departure time, so we were stuck waiting on the tracks, so we wouldn’t miss it when it did finally come. Thankfully, our kids buddied up with another family and they all sprawled out on the platform and played and chatted the morning away. Ron and I miraculously kept our cool the entire time, which really set the tone for the whole crew to view it as a funny delay rather than a disasterous inconveinance.
Paris
Where We Stayed: 3rd arrondissement
How Long We Stayed: 7 Night
Favorite Outing: Jardin du Luxembourg
Favorite Restaurant: Faste (croque monsieurs)
What We’d Do Differently: Skip the trip out to Versailles
We had been to Paris before, back when we only had two kids! We loved it so much, we definitely wanted to go back again on this trip. Paris is such a wonderful city, with beautiful gardens, charming old buildings and architecture, world-renowned museums, palaces, and cathedrals, and so many delicous pastries in picturesque cafes. As this was our fourth week of traveling, we definitely slowed down on this leg of the trip. Opting for slower days, especially as we had been here before. We spent a lot of time exploring our neighborhood and playing at local playgrounds, we enjoyed seeing all of the Olympics sites around the city (it had just ended the week prior, so no crowds!), and we took a day trip out to Versailles. Honestly, Versailles was something we could have done without. Versailles is an hour outside of the city center, and if you get the wrong train ticket, they are waiting to fine you a hefty fine, which did indeed happen to us. From there, even with time entries, you have to wait in an hour long line in the heat to get inside. Not worth it, in my opinion, but maybe that’s just because at this point we had been to so many palaces, they all seemed to just blend together!
Jardin du Luxembourg
This was our favorite outing. The Jardin du Luxembourg is the most famous park in Paris and is beautiful to just roam around. We saw the miniature statue of liberty, played at our favorite playground, and rode on a carousel where the kids got to joust for rings as they rode around. Note: you do have to pay to enter the playground!
The Louvre
We love museums, and two visits to the Louvre and I still need to go back! It was fun this time around with some older kids who could appreciate some of the art and actually knew what the Mona Lisa was! The Louvre is also great because it is right next to a large open park where kids can run around and release some of that pent up energy from being inside a museum for hours!
Eiffel Tower
The Eiffel Tower is always a must-see. Last time we actually didn’t go to the top of it, but we opted to this time, and I am so glad we did! It was such a fun experience and the views were amazing!
Disneyland Paris
After a week in Paris and nearly a month in Europe, we finished our trip with 2 days at Disneyland Paris. This was such a great way to end the trip. We recognize that we expect a lot of flexibility from our kids on these types of trips, and that some aspects will tire and bore them. So it’s definitely fun when we can include parts that solely focused on them! (okay fine, I may love Disney just as much). We stayed at the Marriott Village d’ile-de-France which was just a quick 10 minute shuttle ride to Disneyland. We took the first day we arrived to just have a pool day. After trekking all over Europe and staying in bare bones Airbnbs, the kids had a blast at this hotel. They spent hours playing in the Mickey Mouse-shaped pool. The hotel also had a kids room with activities throughout the day, an aracde room, and a small convenient store. But my favorite part was the lodging. It was a 3 bedroom condo that was probably the same size as any home we’ve ever lived in. It was massive, so well equipped, and most welcomed, it had 3 bathrooms (which felt amazing after sharing 1 bathroom for a month!). We had a nice backyard that was also a short walk to a playground. Best part of all, it was actually the cheapest place we’d stayed our entire trip! I highly recommend it.
And of course, Disney was Disney. The kids loved it, despite some rain on the first day. We navigated rides with 5 by ourself for the first time and found it pretty manageable (thanks to a very chill toddler who is content to just hang in his stroller with whoever!). It was a wonderful way to end our time in Europe. At the end of our last day at Disneyland, we headed straight to the airport and flew home!
