8 Best Things To Do In Paris For Halloween

Are you looking for the best things to do in Paris for Halloween?

While the French do not typically celebrate Halloween, in the recent decades the young people of France started throwing costume parties for the occasion.

Taking place on the 31st of October, Halloween is often thought of as too American and too commercialized. This is an opportunity taken advantage of by businesses in France. Bars, restaurants, and other establishments have jumped on the bandwagon.

While you will see Halloween-related items in some French stores during this season, don’t expect to see Halloween decorations in every shop window.

Halloween is celebrated more festively in Paris than any other places in the country. When you’re in the capital during the Halloween, you may want to partake in the best activities you can do to celebrate the occasion.

8 Best Things To Do In Paris For Halloween

While Halloween is not typically observed in France, the French celebrate La Toussaint or simply Toussaint (short for Tout les Saints, or All Saints’ Day) to honor the dead on the first day of November.

Still, there are tons of things to do in Paris for Halloween. Let’s check them out.

1. Visit Pére Lachaise Cemetery

Père Lachaise Cemetery takes its name from Père Francois de la Chaise, King Louis XIV’s confessor. It’s located in the 20th arrondissement of Paris and houses the graves of many famous celebrities such as Jim Morrison, Frederic Chopin, Edith Piaf, Gertrude Stein, Oscar Wilde, Marcel Proust, Claude Chabrol, and Gaspard Ulliel.

Visitors report spooky occurrences in the Père Lachaise Cemetery on a regular basis.

The ghost of Adolphe Thiers, prime minister during King Louis-Philippe’s reign in the 19th century, is said to tug on the clothes of visitors if they come too close to his grave. The American rock star Jim Morrison is said to be frequently seen wandering near his resting place. Other reports have to do with spectral lights and figures wandering around the cemetery.

All these “sightings” put Pére Lachaise Cemetery on top of numerous lists as the most haunted place in the French capital. If you want to witness these occurences, there’s no better time to do it than on Halloween.

READ MORE: 15 Famous People Buried In Père Lachaise Cemetery

Buy your ticket online here.

2. See human skeletons at the Paris Catacombs

A truly unique site to visit in the French capital, the Paris Catacombs host millions of artfully arranged human skeletons. There are roughly 6 million of them in these catacombs, which consist of a winding maze of tunnels mostly under the 5th, 6th, 14th, and 15th arrondissements of Paris.

The idea of visiting this macabre underground burial site in the French capital has fascinated visitors for hundreds of years. Legends and secrets, and of course, stories about the skeletons and how they ended up there will surely entertain you.

What Halloween could be spookier and more unforgettable than spending it down the Paris Catacombs?

Buy your ticket online here.

3. Walk the red carpet with hundreds of “celebrities” at the Musée Grévin

The Musée Grévin (Grévin Museum) is a wax museum situated on the Grands Boulevards in the 9th arrondissement of Paris.

The Musée Grévin was founded in 1882, making it one of the oldest wax museums in Europe. It has created over 2000 figures since its inauguration. Today, it showcases more than 500 famous wax figures from Napoleon Bonaparte to Marilyn Monroe, Joe Biden, and Salvador Dali. It also has locations in Montreal (Canada) and Seoul (South Korea).

Akin to the Madame Tussauds museums, the Musée Grévin showcases truly realistic wax figures of pop culture icons, ranging from movie stars to singers, athletes, political figures, and even cartoon characters. In short, pretty much anyone famous.

At the Musée Grévin, you can pose for a picture with Alfred Hitchcock, Donald Trump, and Zombie Boy. How’s that for Halloween?

Buy your ticket online here.

4. Enter Le Manoir de Paris

Le Manoir de Paris is the city’s largest “haunted house” venue. Here you can watch actors clad in Halloween costumes portraying macabre tales such as The Assassins’ Cabaret, The Phantom of the Opera, and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame in French and English.

Le Manoir de Paris, literally translated as “The Paris Manor,” is a walk-through dark “haunted” mansion. It was actually one of the former ceramic factories in the Choisy-le-Roi station, situated at the edge of what used to be a leper colony in the 10th arrondissement of Paris.

Inside Le Manoir, you can also see scary versions of the Opera House, the Paris sewers, Pere Lachaise Cemetery, and the Paris Catacombs. However, due to the gory sight of artificial blood and grisly masks, these features are not for the squeamish . For everyone else, enjoy!

5. See the cadavers at the Musée Fragonard

You may have heard the name “Fragonard.” Yes, it is one of the most popular perfume brands in France, which also makes other products such as soaps, body creams, and many more.

However, there is another Fragonard that becomes especially significant during the Halloween season in France.

Honoré Fragonard was an anatomist and veterinary surgeon related to the Fragonards of the perfume industry. This particular Gragonard was a master of cadaver preservation with a macabre collection that includes dried and pickled human organs, as well as limbs and full bodies.

You can see all these at the Musée Fragonard d’Alfort, or simply Musée Fragonard, located in a suburb of Paris called Maisons-Alfort.

Some of the most popular displays you can see there are the skinless cadavers of a horse and its rider. They are just two of the over 4,000 pieces in Fragonard’s collection that are housed in the museum.

6. Attend Disney’s Halloween Party

During this season, Disneyland Paris is filled with grinning pumpkins, ghosts and skeletons, and other bone-tingling Halloween decorations that will delight children of all ages. At sunset, Sleeping Beauty Castle is adorned with water fountains and lights as well as music.

However, the biggest thrill happens exactly on Halloween, October 31st, with Disney’s Halloween Party enchanting the whole park. The party starts at 8 PM and lasts until 2 AM.

Buy your ticket online here.

7. Enjoy carnival rides and other spooky attractions in Jardin d’Aclimatation

First opening to the public in 1860, the Jardin d’Acclimatation is the oldest amusement park in France. It covers 47 acres (19 hectares) of land in the northern part of Bois de Boulogne, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris.

The long-running Jardin d’Acclimatation is inside a nicely landscaped garden which has been re-landscaped, its architectural heritage restored since it first opened over 160 years ago. The leisure park promises a lot of fun and entertainment with its workshops 44 carnival rides. 

For the celebration of La Toussaint, Jardin d’Acclimatation offers rides and spooky attractions and festivities, such as the Haunted Museum and the Bewitched River.

You can expect ghosts and skulls, but nothing too hair-raising beyond that. There are also workshops and puppet shows such as the “Dio de los Muertos.”

8. Visit the Panthéon and its crypt

A few steps from La Sorbonne in the center of Paris’ Latin Quarter, you will find the Panthéon and its crypt. Here you will be welcomed by a creepy painting of Saint Denis holding a decapitated head.

The corridors that will lead you to the crypts are just as anxiety-inducing, but you will be rewarded by the inspiration that awaits when you reach the resting places of some of the greatest Frenchmen who have ever walked the land, including Voltaire, Louis Braille, Émile Zola, Victor Hugo, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

A visit to the Panthéon is a must, truly one of the best things to do in Paris for Halloween – and all year round.