Take Your Kids to Europe by Cynthia Harriman

The Orsay and the Orangerie are both on the pass and I would think your kids would enjoy both. I think your kids would love the Arch d'Triomphe (Paris Pass) for the views. Even if you do not climb it, go see it both day and night. The Eiffel tower is not on the Paris Pass. Versailles is covered with the museum pass, too, that will be fine in the winter though the gardens will be brown and fountains covered. Even if the kids feel they would not be interested in the Louvre, I would still go in and appreciate the architecture and the fact that it was a palace and people lived there. In Paris, look into the Paris Museum Pass, it allows you to skip lines, which will be few, but still its worthwhile, plus then you don't have to deal with tickets over and over. I wouldn't do the canal boat tour unless they have the top open, otherwise the views are very obstructed. I think kids like Van Gogh and the size of the museum is very manageable. I think you may also want to purchase Van Gogh tickets in advance. Depending on weather, you could rent bikes and that would be fun. The canals will still be picturesque and you will enjoy wandering around. I believe they sell them 3 months before. In Amsterdam, your children, in particular would enjoy the Anne Frank house and I would still purchase tickets in advance. I don't think I'd ever go to any of these places during 'peak' tourist season, I'd rather deal with marginal weather than crowds. While the weather for us in the other cities was not what I would consider optimal, we didn't have to battle crowds, in some cities we actually had unseasonably warm weather, and all in all we had a great time, because we were in Europe. If you are not set on your locations and wanted to work with weather, Spain would be fairly warm and locations in Austria/Switzerland will have 'real winter' and not just cold and rain. In terms of Natural beauty, gardens will be bare and brown.

What you will find with your cities, is that they don't really have winter, it's in between weather, so not really what people consider winter, but cool and rainy/damp. That paid off and we enjoyed the gargoyles and views.

On the last day, instead of going there in the morning, I decided if they were to open it, it would be at 3pm the warmest part of the day.

Most of the time it was closed due to 'frigid weather' which was frustrating yet amusing. One thing high on our wish list was to go to the top of the Notre Dame. Most of the bistros/cafes still had outdoor seating, with heaters. The positive of these trips was that there were few crowds. The second was Catalunya/Vienna/munich/Salzburg/multiple cities in Switzerland and Paris. The first trip was Vienna/Budapest/Prague/Munich/Fussen.

Prefacing my comments, I live in Minnesota where we have cold winters with snow.

Take Your Kids to Europe by Cynthia Harriman