Kid Friendly Activities in Provence, France

 

As you know, we just returned from a few weeks in Provence and Nice with our family of 6. We have four very young children (ages 7, 5, 3, and 1) and knew we had to combine a mix of sight seeing with some very kid friendly activities. This was THEIR vacation too, so we wanted to devote some sweet time to doing this specifically for children. 

Don't get me wrong, the majority of the trip they spent exploring local hill top villages and market towns, as well as swimming in the mediterannean and soaking in the sun on the French Riviera. But we really loved giving them a few special days to do some specific kid related activities...So, without further ado...these were our favorites....

Avignon Aquatic Center  (Stade Nautique d'Avignon)

It was HOT in Provence, and the kids asked multiple times if we could find a place to swim. Since we were staying in Avignon, we found this amazing aquatic center. The kids loved it. Aside from regular swimming pools, they had water slides, splash pads, kiddie pools, and a whirlpool. You have to be a certain height to ride the big slides, so only our 7 year old could ride down. But our younger kids loved the smaller slides, and we could ride with them too. One hilarious sidetone is that men have to have a speedo to enter. Kevin clearly does not own a speedo, but never fear, they have a vending machine, and for $14 you too can get yourself a speedo haha! (As a side note, if your kids are a few years older, these is a fantastic waterpark called Wave Island. You have to be a certain height so only one of my kids could have done it now. But if we go in the future we want to check it out!) 

Piratland

I thought this was going to be quite ridiculous, but to be honest, our whole family loved it. It was perfect for our kids ages. They have bounce houses, rides, trampolines, and a small water park area. You buy gold coins (in keeping with the pirate theme, haha), and then use them to spend whatever you want. So it's free to get in which is nice. Most of the rides are only 1-3 coins, and the water park is 5 coins. We bought the 100 coin option and ended up with way too many coins, so you could get away with a smaller package. For reference, we stayed a full 3 hours! 

Le Bois de Lutins

We honestly didn't know much about this fairy/troll land before going, but it was truly a delight. Nestled in a woodland area were layers and layers of themed fairy and troll playgrounds. Treehouses with canopies and bridges, huge blow up tires to run inside, trampolines to bounce on, and a fairly large water park area. Our family favorite was the luge...you sit in an inflated ring and ride down a track. It was so much fun. We literally spent ALL day here, time flew! My only complaint is that it is up and down hills, so a little tricky with a stroller. But we did it, and it was fine! 

Aix en Provence

As I mentioned in my last blog post (which you can see here), Aix en Provence has so many kid friendly activities around town. They have the iconic carousel which the kids rode on a few times, and then they have a little kids activity center (across from the carousel) which has trampolines for the kiddos to bounce on (and other activities). Everything is so cheap. The carousel was $3/kid and then the trampoline bounce was $5/kid (in American this would be like $50). 

Ok...so tell me, what did YOUR kids love in Provence?? What else should I add to this list?