My parents (in their 70's) have offered to rent a centrally located house in Italy and have our family of five come for a two week visit next summer. Sounds great but I am concerned about too much travel time (kids aged 5,11,14). Can we make this idea work (with some hotel stays in Rome, Etc). Or are we better off doing an around the country do it your way Rick Steves tour or something like that. Thoughts please!!
Posted by
California USA
4137 posts
If you choose a house with a pool in an area with good transportation links, in a medium-large sized town with restaurants, I think your kids would enjoy both hanging out and traveling day trips.
Posted by
New York, NY, USA
11294 posts
Where exactly is this "centrally" located house? Even if it is central as the crow flies, how close is it to major highways or train stations? And what places do you want to see from this house as daytrips?
There's no single location that will allow you to see Rome, Venice, and Florence all comfortably as daytrips. If you limit your goals, however, this can work fine. A better plan would be two one-week rentals in different areas.
Posted by
Portland
3648 posts
Your parents' offer sounds perfect, with a little tweaking, for agriturismo stays. Over the years, people have recommended a number of such, which have apartments and free-standing houses, pools, organized activities, bikes, and even horses for riding. The tweaking, as Harold suggests and I concur, would be 2 one-week stays in different locations. In my opinion, everyone, especially the kids, will be happier if they aren't moving around as much as you would do on a tour.
I'll just throw in here that on 3 occasions we have been lucky enough to be part of large group stays in Italian villas, twice in Tuscany, once in the Veneto. We had a marvelous time everywhere. One thing that really contributed to the good time was that we had several cars. People could join up and go off for day trips to different destinations, or just have a quiet day of relaxation. With 4 adults and 3 kids you should certainly be able to give everyone choices that will make them happy.
Posted by
Portland, Oregon, United States
907 posts
Last year we had a family of 12. We had three cars (you might think about 2, or one minivan).
We stayed in San Gemini Umbria in a villa with a pool (cold pool, Santi Terzi) for a week.. Kids loved it. The villa is right in town. We visited the Monster Park in Bomarzo and Orvieto in the same day. There are Roman ruins about 5 miles away and notmany people visit there (Carsulae). It is kind of like having your own Roman ruins to play in , kids loved that too! Narni has a train station with trains to Rome (the walk for the train to the termini in Rome is a bit long).
We the went north to a villa near San Gimignano for another week. From there we took long trips to Pisa and 5 Terre, quite long drives. But, on one we spent an afternoon on the beach in Viareggio and kids got to swim and play in the Med. Lots of fun and something to think about. You can probably find villas closer to things, like Lucca which would be a very good location for you.