7 Best Sights in Side Trips from Paris, France

The 18th-century Château de Compiègne, where the future Louis XVI first met Marie-Antoinette in 1770, was restored by Napoléon I and favored for wild weekends by his nephew Napoléon III. The first Napoléon's legacy is more keenly felt: his state apartments have been refurbished using the original designs for hangings and upholstery, and bright silks and damasks adorn every room. Much of the mahogany furniture gleams with ormolu, and the chairs sparkle with gold leaf. Napoléon III's furniture looks ponderous by comparison. Behind the palace is a gently rising 4-km (2½-mile) vista, inspired by the park at Schönbrunn, in Vienna, where Napoléon I's second wife, Empress Marie-Louise, grew up. Also here is the Musée du Second Empire, a collection of decorative arts from the Napoléon III era: its showstopper is Franz-Xaver Winterhalter's Empress Eugénie Surrounded by Her Ladies in Waiting, a famed homage to the over-the-top hedonism of the Napoléon Trois era. Make time for the Musée de la Voiture (Vehicle Museum) and its display of carriages, coaches, and old cars—including the Jamais Contente (Never Satisfied), the first car to reach 100 kph (62 mph).

A slightly downsized version of its United States counterpart, Disneyland Paris is nevertheless a spectacular sight, created with an acute attention to detail. Disneyland Park, as the original theme park is styled, consists of five "lands": Main Street U.S.A., Frontierland, Adventureland, Fantasyland, and Discoveryland. The central theme of each land is relentlessly echoed in every detail, from attractions to restaurant menus to souvenirs. In Main Street U.S.A., tots adore Alice's Curious Labyrinth, Peter Pan's Flight, and especially the whirling Mad Hatter's Teacups, while everyone loves the afternoon parades, with huge floats swarming with all of Disney's most beloved characters—just make sure to stake your place along Main Street in advance for a good spot.

Top attractions at Frontierland are the chilling Phantom Manor, haunted by holographic ghosts, and the thrilling runaway mine train of Big Thunder Mountain, a roller coaster that plunges wildly through floods and avalanches in a setting meant to evoke Utah's Monument Valley. Whiffs of Arabia, Africa, and the Caribbean give Adventureland its exotic cachet; the spicy meals and snacks served here rank among the best food in the park. Don't miss Pirates of the Caribbean, an exciting mise-en-scène populated by lifelike animatronic figures, or Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, a rapid-fire ride that recreates some of this hapless hero's most exciting moments.

Fantasyland charms the youngest parkgoers with familiar cartoon characters from such classic Disney films as Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan. The focal point of Fantasyland, and indeed Disneyland Paris, is Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant (Sleeping Beauty's Castle), a 140-foot, bubble-gum-pink structure topped with 16 blue- and gold-tipped turrets.

Discoveryland is a high-tech, futuristic eye-popper. Robots on roller skates welcome you on your way to Star Tours, a pitching, plunging, sense-confounding ride based on the Star Wars films; and another robot, the staggeringly realistic 9-Eye, hosts a simulated space journey in Le Visionarium.

The older the child, the more they will enjoy Walt Disney Studios, a cinematically driven area next to the Disneyland Park, where many of the newer Disney character–themed rides can be found. It's divided into four "production zones," giving visitors insight into different parts of the production process, including Animation Courtyard, where Disney artists demonstrate the various phases of character animation, and Production Courtyard, where you can go on a behind-the-scenes Studio Tram tour of location sites, movie props, studio interiors, and costumes, ending with a visit to Catastrophe Canyon in the heart of a film shoot.

At the Marvel Avengers Campus—the park’s newest attraction in eight years and the first stage of Disney Paris’s major multi-year transformation—kids become real-life recruits in the superhero universe, taking daring steps alongside Black Widow, Doctor Strange, Black Panther, and the like. The Avengers Assemble: Flight Force high-speed roller coaster offers hardcore thrills (your mission: save the Earth and the Avengers' Campus from Kree missiles), while Spider-Man W.E.B. Adventure takes you on a 3-D odyssey to test your web-throwing skills as you fight a horde of Spider Bots. The Avengers Campus is small (it can be traversed in five minutes), but it offers animations, a stunt show, three restaurants, and a boutique where superheroes-in-training can stock up on all the essential equipment.

The grandest stables in France were built by Jean Aubert in 1719 to accommodate 240 horses and 500 hounds used for stag and boar hunting in the forests nearby. Now with 30 breeds of horses and ponies living here in straw-lined comfort, the palatial stables function as the Musée Vivant du Cheval (Living Horse Museum). Equine history is explored through an array of artifacts, prints, paintings, textiles, sculptures, equipment, and weaponry. Visitors can also enjoy the elaborate horse shows and dressage demonstrations year-round; check the website for dates and times.

A collection of 85,000 miniature soldiers—fashioned of lead, cardboard, and other materials—depicting military uniforms through the ages is on display in the Musée de la Figurine Historique.

A great alternative to Disneyland, and a wonderful day out for young and old, this Gallic theme park takes its cue from a French comic-book figure whose adventures are set during the Roman invasion of France 2,000 years ago. Among the 30 rides and six shows that attract thundering herds of families each year are a mock Gallo-Roman village, costumed druids, performing dolphins, splash-happy waterslides, and a giant roller coaster.

Set above split-level gardens, this 17th-century village château (also depicted by van Gogh) now houses the Voyage au Temps des Impressionnistes. You'll receive a set of headphones (English available), with commentary that guides you past various tableaux illustrating life during the Impressionist years. Although there are no Impressionist originals—500 reproductions pop up on screens interspersed between the tableaux—this is one of France's most imaginative, enjoyable, and innovative museums. Some of the special effects, including talking mirrors, computerized cabaret dancing girls, and a simulated train ride past Impressionist landscapes, are worthy of Disney.