Family 6 weeks in Europe

We just returned from Germany with my 2 year old daughter. We stayed on a tourist farm. She loved it! We had an apartment above the barn. There were kittens to play with, pony rides every couple days with a riding instructor (though a 2 year old doesn't take instruction), a goat, ponys and lots of pigs. Only down side was that we needed a car to get to the farm and there were flys, but that was to be expected at a pig farm. I found our farm through: http://www.farmholidays.de/e/ I really recomend choosing a farm near sites that you want to see and then staying for a week. We've found that staying in an apartment is way easier with our daughter than staying in hotels. Oh you could look into going to a bath/water park while you're in Europe. A lot of the bath sound fancy, but many are family friendly.

Hi Ruggie,

A trip like this will take some good planning. If you can get a copy of Rick Steves "Best of Europe" in Australia I'd recommend doing that. Start by making a list of all of the places that you want to visit and map out a plan that makes the most efficient use of the time that you have. Rick's recommendations for hotels are well located, reasonably priced, and clean.

Kent's post on itinerary planning will help you with deciding what's realistic based on distances between the cities that you are visiting:

Kent's Itinerary Planning Tools

Enjoy your travels!

I'd also suggest getting a copy of "Take Your Kids to Europe." It has lots of useful info in traveling with kids and finding accomodations. It also has some things to see that you won't find in other guidebooks, since it's mostly involving seeing animals, which most grown-ups don't go to Europe to do.

If you guys are going to the wine region, I'd suggest going to the Dordogne. We were planning a trip there with our 2 kids (ages 7 & 3) this summer, but ended up in Ireland instead. The Dordogne has castles and caveman paintings, which your boys may be into.

Jo would probably have some good suggestions for things to do with kids around Frankfurt, if you're spending any time around there.

Which French wine region? There's wine everyplace, except maybe Normandy and Brittany. (But try the cider.)

It sounds as though Burgundy might be on your route, which has exceptional wine, also castles, hill towns, and even a place you can visit where they are building a castle using old methods. Might be a little something for everyone.

Thank you for the suggestions, I will try and get the 2 books mentioned.

Michelle, we prefer to stay in apartments whenever we can too, and you are right, they are trickier to find then hotel. Have you got any good links you can share or recommend some that you have used in Europe before.
Apartment certainly fit well with kids and it also gives that feel of 'living' in the place more.
I like the idea of the farmstay, but dont think I can handle the smell. How bad was it?

Adam: Bordeux and champagneare on his wish list

Lol. The smell at the farm wasn't bad at all. The only pigs they had near the apartment were the ones who were near birth and had new babies. They kept everything really clean. Plus it was a small farm. Mom, Dad and grandma and grandpa were the only ones who were needed to work everything. I would look at some of the various farms online and see what would work for you. It seemed to me that the tourist farm was just a good way to help the farmers make ends meet. When looking for apartments I recomend the site: http://www.homelidays.com/ I've found some good places from this site.
Send me a message if you have any more questions.

We did a farmstay also in Austria when my son was 3, and we LOVED it. Lots of other families staying there, too, so he had lots of kids to play with.

I think farmstays are a little easier to find in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland than otherwise (some people on here may have different experiences). In France, the apartments in the country are called "gites", so you can do a search for those. If you go on the tourism website for Sarlat, they have a ton listed for the Dordogne region.

Bordeaux is not logistically convenient for your itinerary, and I'm not sure what the kids would do there. It is probably the most prestigious wine region in France, though, so if that's what's important it may be worth the trip down there. (In which case you should take the advice of others and spend some time in Perigord.)

On the other hand, Champagne works better logistically. And you can tell your husband that Burgundy is no minor wine destination either.