Italy with 4 kids!

When traveling to Italy, many first time tourists are often overwhelmed with the culture, food, architecture and art. There is so much to see and they try to go to too many places. Eight days in Italy is just enough to cover one major city or region.

And moving around with 5-6 people is another issue as rental cars in Europe are not that large. You would most likely need a van which can be quite a hassle to take into cities--especially with very expensive parking. And many of the cities have ZTLs which you would avoid or be heavily fined.

Our first visit to Italy was flying into Pisa and taking a one hour train into Florence. We spent a long weekend by the train station and then rented a car. We stayed in an agriturisimo an hour south outside San Gimignano found on Booking.com. We toured the hill towns closeby including Certaldo and Volterra. We finally drove south to Orvieto and turned our rental car in at the train station before touring that great hilltown. Then we took a train into Rome--70 minutes. We stayed in a B&B in Zagarolo on that trip--20 miles south of the city and took commuter trains into the city daily to do the tourist thing.

This would be the type of trip that would do your family well, but 8 days is too short to take in more than one major city. Any great European city is worthy of a 4 day minimum stay. First and last days of a trip are wasted and every time you move from one city to another is another wasted day.

Welcome to the forum, p.santos83!
More information would be helpful, most specifically how many nights versus days you will have on the ground in Italy. It's a more accurate way to look at how much time you really have for sightseeing. For instance...

I would love to visit Venice and Burano for another 2 days.

Two FULL days of sightseeing = 3 nights. 2 nights = 1 full day. As well, your fastest way back to Rome will be via high-speed train: approximately 4 hours. You don't want the car in Venice anyway, and rail would save you some valuable sightseeing time. You can bring your breakfast/lunch on the train and they have restrooms, so no need for stops, and have large windows for all to just settle back and enjoy the scenery. :O)

Honestly? I think you're trying to include much too much, and that's why you're overwhelmed! As said above, moving 6 people around a foreign country is likely going to take more time that you think it will, and driving in Italy is going to require some advance homework. Also, renting a car in Rome and driving to Tuscany on a jet-lagged arrival day isn't something most of us would recommend.

Less can definitely be more: you can give a couple of locations the time to really enjoy them, or try to shoehorn many locations into short amounts of time, running breakneck from one attraction to another and ending up too exhausted to remember what you saw. Even if you manage to manage the tight schedules, early mornings and long days of sightseeing, your youngest may not: you'll move only as fast as your slowest or least-tired family member. Given the Easter crowd likely to be occupying Rome, you'll be spending a lot of time in the middle of the mob to "see the sights", and that can be wearing, especially for little folks whose view may too often be of grown-up backsides. :O)

What "sights" are you wanting to see in Rome?

A day trip to Pompeii/Positano is definitely not recommended on your very limited time: it takes too many hours in transport that could better be used in Rome itself.

One more thing? You are late for making reservations for accommodations - especially for 6 people - so a plan needs to be determined and those made ASAP.

With only 8 days, and an interest in Easter Mass in Rome, you really only have time for Rome and one other location. Consider renting apartments, as hotels will not offer rooms for all 6 of you; it would have to be 2 rooms, with one parent in each.

I suggest you travel by train, not by car. A rental car for 6 people means a mini-van, which can be expensive to rent and hard drive on narrow Italian roads. More importantly, the car seat requirements for italy are strict, potentially requiring child seats or at least booster seats for 3 of your 4 children. You would need a rental vehicle with space and seatbelts for all the car seats, and you would need to bring or rent the seats. There is valuable information and advice on child car seats in this blog:

https://mominitaly.com/car-seats-in-italy/

(Children up to to $ feet 11 inches and 80 pounds will need a child seat or booster seat).

Also, a car would be useless in Venice and Burano.

With the Trenitalia “Bimbi Gratis” offer, your children will all travel for free on trains, and parents get a 40% discount.

https://www.trenitalia.com/en/offers/bimbi_gratis.html

I would skip some of your other desired destinations to spend more time in Rome. There's a lot there that would interest your children and I'm sure they would love the day trip to Pompeii. Plus moving from one city to another is tiring and uses up at least half a day each time you do that. You know your kids and I don't, but will they enjoy driving around Tuscany to see small villages and vineyards?

Arrive in Rome - rent a car and head to Tuscany

I would be among the large percentage of folks who would advise against getting off what presumably will be an overnight flight and then immediately drive in strange environs.

For the time you have, you need to narrow your focus on how many places to go. Your 'wish list' is way too many.

My suggestion is take train to Florence upon arrival and base yourself there and take day trips. Or rent car in Florence and go to whatever countryside location you choose. Drop car back in Florence and take train back to Rome.

Would a day trip to Pompeii and Positano be possible?

"Possible". Maybe. I suspect if you did it you would regret it, probably before you got back to Rome.

Look at Ostia Antica as the alternative to Pompeii. Given you kids age range this would be more manageable and enjoyable for them.

I join the chorus for the train. I have been to Italy more than six times and have never driven.

My experience in traveling with family groups is that you have to adapt to the pace of the slowest person if anyone is going to have fun. That means the pace of a five year old.

I think you are trying to do too much. What about spending a couple of days in Orvieto when you arrive? It is close by and it would be a place children would like. Then spend the rest of your time in Rome.

We just got back from Italy a couple weeks ago. We rented a car when we left Rome and drove to Campania and then to Tuscany and back to the Rome airport to fly home. We didn’t have any issues with driving - roads may be a little narrow but the cars are also narrower than in the US and even a van that holds 6 people will be way smaller than the Chevy Tahoe or Ford Expedition a family might drive here.

If you’re driving you should make sure your lodging includes parking, which means you probably won’t be staying in historic city centers but you might be staying on a really cool farm. Just plan on parking when you get to a town or city and then walking around or taking transit until you leave. We found a number of parking lots in Pisa that were close to the Tower area and just outside the ZTL, and in Florence we took Rick’s guidebook’s advice and parked in the big lot of the A1 and took Tram 1 into town.

Good luck with the trip!

Italy requires car seat or booster seat for all kids under 59 inches
(In Italy, children under 150cm (59.05 in) must use the appropriate car seat or booster seat for their height or weight (article 172 of the Italian road code – )https://mominitaly.com/car-seats-in-italy/

Suspect at least 2 of OPs kids would require a seat of some sort. That likely necessitates a 9 passenger van, which will be the size of a typical US mini-van or Expedition/Suburban size SUV.

There is nothing 'magical' about cars in Europe. A car big enough for 6 passengers, some in car seats and their luggage will be as big as its US counterpart.