Dress for teenage boys

Tom - if your boys are planning on going into churches or other religious buildings they will need to wear long pants. My 17 year old brought pants last summer and wore them in the cities. He only wore shorts when we were at the beach or seeing ruins such as Pompeii.

We will be in Italy in late June/early July. Given the extreme heat, we will be dressing comfortably, which will mean shorts a lot of the time, especially the kids (16, 12, 12). When we're required to be dressed a certain way (e.g., Vatican and St. Mark's Basilica), we will do so. But, otherwise, we will dress as we see fit.

There are also places that you may not realize are under the same guidelines (i.e. must wear long pants). We visited the abbey in Montecassino and had to go back to the hotel to change to our long pants. There are also churches in every wonderful small town that you will be visiting so again, be aware that though you may not be planning to see any of the big cathedrals, you will certainly come across smaller churches and the dress code for Italian churches includes covered knees and shoulders.

Thanks. That's where zip-off pants can come in handy!