Traveling with family of 5. Leaving 7/28

From Paris to Italy, the cheapest transport is to book ahead on a budget airline; see www.skyscanner.com; Florence or Pisa airports are likely candidates.

From Florence or other Italian city to Rome, train is simplest and advance-discount tickets go on sale 3 months ahead at www.trenitalia.com.

As for visiting Tuscany, you probably will rent a car for a few days to get to more rural areas, or you can take organized van tours from Florence or Siena.

I recommend planning with Rick's single-city guidebook for each of those three cities, and logical side trips will also be discussed in the books.

Just to let you know, its not easy finding hotels that take four, let alone five ina room..so I would really focus on finding hotels are kids old enough to be known rooms? An apartment may be best option, but then again, depending on when you go, its not so easy to find larger apartments that aren't booked!
You most definately do not need or want a car in any of those cities,,,but for countryside yes a car in Italy would be good idea . I would fly into Paris, taxi into city( its not much cheaper to take public transportation for five so just take a taxi) ...then I would fly to Florence, spent however long there you wish then train to Rome and I would definitely fly home from Rome.

When is trip?

PS we had three kids and ended up doing separate one on one trips with kids as it harder with large families! Lol

I would definitely look at vrbo to get an apartment. Also as was mentioned, get your train tickets like 90 days in advance, pretty cheap that way!

Kim

For Paris and Rome unless you are spending more than 4 or 5 days then you probably won't venture out of the central areas. Look at finding a van with driver from Florence for one or two days in Tuscany.

For Tuscany you need a car -- I'd rent one for that time. If you are mostly going to be in Florence and Rome then get a tour for a taste of Tuscany. You can also do a day trip by bus from Florence to Siena inexpensively on your own -- it is about an hour away and very much worth the visit. Lucca is another good day trip by train and the kids could get bikes to ride on the town walls.

In Paris you will not find a room for 5 and hotels are very vigilant about how many people are in a room so you won't be able to get a quad room and sneak a kid in. So either get an apartment (check out Vacation in Paris as they rent for periods of less than a week and have a good reputation -- although apartment rental is always riskier than hotels) or else plan on getting two rooms - a triple and a double. Hotel Marignan in the Latin Quarter has at least one room set up for 5 but it is very rare to find a suite like set up that will take 5.

We are a family of 4 and just returned from 35 days in Europe. I found that if you book tickets as soon as they become available the prices are so much cheaper. Additionally children's tickets are discounted, often half the price of adult tickets. I purchased non-refundable, non-changeable, 2nd class tickets. But I also purchased travel insurance which included travel delays.

When deciding plane-vs-train factor in travel to and from the airport, plus wait time at the airport. Additionally, factor in all those hidden fees for many budget airlines. At least for us our advanced purchased train tickets beat the budget airlines both in time and money.

Additionally trains are just so much better for families. The seats are much bigger, there's a lot more room, you can bring lunch, and the scenery is spectacular. My 8 year old said "mommy, I don't know how to say this but trains are a better quality of travel."

That said, I feel compelled to mention one pain in the bottom aspect of train travel. They don't tell you which platform your train will depart from until 15 minutes prior to departure & sometimes less. So everybody stares at the departure board and then makes a mad dash for the train.

For the train trip between Firenze and Roma, you should get tickets that include seat reservations, so don't worry about mad dash to the train track (although that happens, you'll have your seats).

We had reserved seats on every train. The problem was the platform # was posted at most 15 minutes before the train departed. Once the platform number was posted 7 minutes before departure and the train left on time. This is problematic when traveling between cities with luggage. Fortunately we traveled light with 1 carry-on apiece.

I agree with Jehb2. The most stressful part of my travel is the period between the platform posting and actually getting on the proper car of the train. The cars are not always labeled… Otherwise, I love train travel. I think train travel is far and above the best way to go!

for short trips up to 3 or 4 hours e.g. Paris/Amsterdam or Rome/FLorence the train is the way to go. Tickets bought 3 mos out are MUCH cheaper but I wouldn't do that for anything one were taking on immediate arrival so you don't have to worry about late planes. But if you book other trips 90 days or so out, you save as much as two thirds, occasionally even more than that.

For long hauls e.g. Paris/Rome then budget airlines are cheaper and more convenient and time effective. Those tickets are also much cheaper bought early.

5 is a difficult number; either get apartments in places you are staying for longer periods or plan to get two rooms. It isn't like the US where you can pile pretty much as many people as you want into a room and the rooms themselves are huge and have a couple of double beds; room occupancy is strictly controlled and people are turned away who show up with extra people including babies.

Departure date 7/28 : You're all so helpful with your responses to my questions. Apparently, I did not state the question clearly (Sorry.) We already have our plane tickets and hotel reservations, I just don't know how to get around each city (Paris, Rome, and Florence) once there. I REALLY want to see the countryside of Italy. Should we rent a car to see the countryside or ? Also, how do we navigate Paris? Bus, train or feet? Thank you for your help!

As you would expect, how you get around depends on the location of your accommodation.
Where are you staying in all these places ?

boyzceo, may i ask how many days you've reserved for each of the three cities? What are you planning to see in all three of them? And how old are your children? This sort of information can be helpful when recommending things to do and ways to get around.

The locations of your accommodations would be helpful as well.

One mistake first-timers often make is trying to do too much with too little time. Before recommending driving about the countryside, the amount of time you actually have to do what is already on your Florence/Rome sightseeing lists may determine whether that's going to fit within your schedule. Florence, BTW is IN Tuscany so that's where you should day-trip from.

We've gotten around Rome, Florence and Paris mainly on our feet with very little use of public transport at all but we also enjoy walking, and are conditioned to doing quite a number of miles in a day.

IN Paris you use the metro and if you are centrally lodged just buy a couple of carnet of 10 tickets for 14.10 each set of ten and get more if you need to. Paris is best seen walking -- use the metro to get to distant spots like the Eiffel Tower and Montmartre.

In florence -- the whole city is totally walk able; we lived there two months using public transportation maybe a dozen times.

Rome -- also a walking city

A day driving around Tuscany in a rental car isn't going to get you anything. I'd either take a tour to a couple of hill towns or else make Siena your day trip from Florence. climb the Torre Mangia and you'll a picture perfect Tuscan landscape.

Kathy, Thank you for your info. Walking is no problem for any of us, we are very fit and able :-). I just don't want to waste precious time walking if we can get somewhere faster by taking a bus or train.

Thank you janettravels44, great info!