My husband and I have traveled a fair bit before but stopped traveling when we had kids. Looking to going to Sicily in Sept/Oct for 10th anniversary trip and husband's 40th birthday. We will have a 1.5 year old and a 3.5 fyear old at the time. We've been to Italy twice and have seen Rome, Venice, Tuscany etc. So my question is, what is the easiest European airport to fly into with toddlers to break up the trip from US? Direct flight from us are Dublin, London (not interested in seeing again), Madrid, Rome, Paris, Amsterdam.. I would fly into one of those airports, spend a few days and then fly domestic to Sicily. We've spent. quite a bit of time in Paris and Rome before but this was prechildren and not pushing a stroller. Any advice with traveling with toddlers to Europe is welcome. We love Europe and don't want to stop livijng our lives with vacaions.
Posted by
San Francisco Bay Area (USA)
16321 posts
Rome offers the most flight options to Sicily, especially outside of summer. You don’t say what your home airport is but if you can fly non stop to Rome, that would be a little less stress.
With kids that small I would definitely rent a car to visit Sicily, except for the portion of your trip when you will be in Palermo. You don’t need a car in Palermo, and you definitely don’t want to have a car while in Palermo. It would be like renting a car to visit Manhattan, except that Palermo’s traffic is way more chaotic than Manhattan, in Palermo use taxis, buses, and walk.
Posted by
OP
9 posts
Thank you so much, I appreciate you answering. I do think Rome would probably be the best big city to stay in with very young children and we are fairly comfortable in Rome as we have stayed around 2 weeks there. We have a very high quality durable stroller, but what I am worried about is using that in Rome. Our 1 year old is in physical therapy for motor delays related to prematurity so I doubt he will be walking by then. I guess I need to start working on my back and shoulder strength to babywear him!
Posted by
Oregon
372 posts
Rome makes the most sense, as you’d spend the least amount of total travel time and anything you can do to minimize transit with the littles will be helpful. And, depending on their home diet Italian food should be easy to enjoy yourselves and find them familiar foods.