Expat Travel Mom

Hopefully you read about the first part of this trip, which started in Munich! We took a few days carved out of our German Christmas market trip, to pop on over to Paris. This gave us time to meet up with friends, enjoy a lovely Christmas Eve dinner, have a Christmas morning surprise for the kids, and of course, see more Christmas markets! Since it wasn't an everyday stay in Paris, this post just glimpses over some things we did while there.

Arrival and a First Wander Through Paris

We traveled by train, this time from Cologne, straight through Belgium and into France. Easiest travel day yet, and I think the kids are officially converts to train travel over taxis and airports. After finding our Airbnb, we set out to cover as much ground as our legs would allow.

We passed the Palace of Justice and the Conciergerie, the former royal palace turned prison where Marie Antoinette spent her final weeks before her execution. We admired Notre-Dame from the outside, the line to actually get in was long enough that we happily just stood and took it in, walked along the Seine, then took the metro to the Tuileries Garden. The giant wheel there, the kind of thing that looks purely festive at Christmas, sits practically on top of one of the darkest patches of ground in French history: what's now the Place de la Concorde, right at the edge of the Tuileries, is where Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were both guillotined during the Revolution. We had no idea at the time we were standing so close to it.

From there we walked past the Eiffel Tower and strolled through the gardens outside the Louvre, catching photos in front of the glass pyramid, we didn't go inside, the kids were simply too young at the time to care much about what was in there, but I'll look forward to it someday when they're older. Lunch was margarita pizza and drinks, then a stop at Galeries Lafayette to see the famous Christmas window displays before heading back to our flat in Montmartre, catching glimpses of the Moulin Rouge and Sacré-Cœur along the way. Joie de vivre!

The Eiffel Tower and an Afternoon of Firsts

The next day we left early to make it into the start of the line for the Eiffel Tower, and it worked, all the way to the top and back down again. One unexpectedly sweet moment up there: a display comparing famous tall buildings around the world, and there was our own Burj Khalifa from our life in the UAE, right alongside it.

We took a short walk across the road and river to Trocadéro, where, in the spur of the moment, we decided to go ice skating. What more could we ask for, a beautiful blue-skied, warm winter day in Paris. Trocadéro also had a lovely Christmas market, our tenth of the trip.

Napoleon's Tomb and Christmas Eve in Montmartre

We spent part of the afternoon at Les Invalides, standing over Napoleon's tomb, an enormous red quartzite sarcophagus resting inside a domed church that's as much a monument to French military history as it is a burial site. We took photos outside the Moulin Rouge, walked to Montmartre where we enjoyed a tiny local Christmas market, our eleventh, complete with kiddie rides, and then rode the funicular up the mountain to Sacré-Cœur. Perhaps another highlight of our trip I cannot put into words, nor do justice, seeing the basilica up close with all of Paris spread out below it.

We ended the day exactly where I'd hoped we would: Christmas Eve dinner at Le Saint Régis in Montmartre, the kind of quiet, candlelit evening that makes the whole detour worth it on its own. The kids had their first taste of escargot here, and we'll always remember that. But who can resist what I'd been waiting for the whole trip, Boeuf Bourguignon and Crème brûlée.

A Reunion Years in the Making

Our last day started with a reunion years in the making. We were once supposed to have a French au pair join our family when we lived in the US, and though it never worked out, we stayed in touch anyway. Not only did she come visit us in the UAE many years later, we met again here in Paris for our own little "petit tour." Salut Cindy, thank you again for making the time and effort to come see us, we loved seeing you again and hope your own adventures are treating you well. (Update: she even met us for a day on our Italy trip!)

Arc de Triomphe, Christmas Market #13, and a Goodbye at Père Lachaise

From there we started at the Arc de Triomphe, then walked the famous Champs-Élysées (found the nicest Starbucks and McDonald's ever), and stopped at Christmas market number twelve, right on the Champs-Élysées, where I had a delicious warm bowl of French onion soup. The family rode the Ferris wheel, something the kids had been begging to do since arriving in Paris and seeing it in the distance.

On my "must see" list was visiting Père Lachaise Cemetery (gorgeous), where Jim Morrison, Chopin, Oscar Wilde, Marcel Marceau, and many others are laid to rest. It's quite a hike in parts of the cemetery, causing the kids to get a little winded and tired, but they managed well. The grave sites were beautiful, and you couldn't help but imagine all the history and stories throughout. I was a bit saddened at the state of Jim Morrison's site, a little underwhelmed after anticipating the visit for so long, but we sang a little song, took our photo, and enjoyed the opportunity to say hello.

Later that evening we ate dinner at a side street vendor, went to Christmas market number thirteen at Saint-Lazare, and then headed home. Whew!

Disneyland

Santa found us all the way in Paris and brought the kids tickets to Disneyland! We woke up very early, still dark outside, set out on yet another wonderful train ride, and arrived at the Happiest Place on Earth. There were a solid few seconds of pure, silent, wide-eyed grins where nothing came out of their mouths before it fully set in. Merry Christmas indeed!

I expected Christmas Day to be utter chaos, but was pleasantly surprised to see it was like any other day at Disneyland. The only difference? It was cold, and that didn't stop the kids from having the time of their lives. Something about the magic of Disney brings smiles to faces, permagrin. We lucked out several times, getting to be first in line for many of the rides.

It was also a day of real firsts. Our youngest, four at the time, rode her first true roller coaster on Big Thunder Mountain, and our eight-year-old finally got back on Space Mountain after years of being spooked by a Halloween-themed version of the ride at Disneyland California. Watching that particular fear get conquered, on Christmas Day, in Paris, felt like its own kind of gift.

After a very long day of walking, smiling, laughing, and enjoying all things Disney, we had three very sleepy kids. We caught the last train of the evening and headed home.

A few days really was enough to fall for this city, on top of an already unforgettable German Christmas market trip. If you want the rest of that story, the trains, the markets, the mugs we came home with, head back to our full Germany Christmas market trip.

Coming back to update: Disneyland Paris has changed enormously since 2012, especially the second park. What was Walt Disney Studios Park back then was completely reimagined and reopened on March 29, 2026 as Disney Adventure World, part of a nearly €2 billion expansion, the most ambitious transformation in the resort's history. It now spans five areas: World Premiere, the Worlds of Pixar (Toy Story, Ratatouille, Cars, and Finding Nemo), Marvel Avengers Campus, a brand-new World of Frozen with a full-scale Arendelle and Frozen Ever After boat ride, and a new Adventure Way promenade circling a lake called Adventure Bay, complete with a new nighttime drone show. Ratatouille: The Adventure, one of the park's most beloved rides today, didn't even exist on our 2012 visit, it opened in 2014. A Lion King-themed land is confirmed as the next addition. If you visit now expecting the park we saw back then, you're in for a genuinely different, and much bigger, experience.