Italy with a 12 year old boy for a week?

With only a week, I think four destinations is way too much. In my view Venice deserves at least 2-3 days and Rome has enough sights for weeks if not months. If the 12 year old has Rome as his first choice, focus on Venice and Rome. I don’t know what your son is interested in, but I would venture to guess that Venice and it’s canals and Rome and it’s Rich history of gladiators, roman legions and aquaducts are more apealing to a 12 Year old boy than renaissance art.

With only a week, consider just two cities. Otherwise you'll lose a lot of time just getting from place to place.

I am in the Venice + Rome camp. Both are exciting cities for a 12-year old. Florence is less so.
Travelling between Venice and Rome is easy with the high-speed train, which takes less than 4 hours with many daily departures and - bought in advance - can be as cheap as around EUR 60 for the two of you. Use Trainline for your tickets. They offer you the choice between the competing railway companies Trenitalia and Italo, for which they act as an agent without any extra costs.

Two cities max. If you land in Venice before noon, transfer to the train station and take a high speed train to Rome. Spend 3 or 4 nights. Then train back to Venice for the balance of your nights before you return home. Adding more stops will take away from you trio, truly, and cost you more. By going to Rome upon arrival, you remove one change of location and as your first day on arrival is a bit of a waste due to jet lag, spending a few hours napping on the train is not all bad.

Ditto to the above: Venice and Rome only, and especially as you'll need to backtrack to Venice to some point. Add any more locations and you'll spend more of your week messing around with trains and stations, checking in and out of hotels and getting acclimated to new surroundings than quality time having fun!

I have traveled with 12 and 15 year old boys (to France, not Italy) and I am glad that we only hit three regions in two weeks. It will be less stressful for you and your son if you stick to two locations. Since you have the flights to Venice and his interest is in Rome, then I would stay in those two places.

Sandy

Its Probably too late to tell you it would’ve been better to fly into Venice and out of Rome (open jaw or multi city booking). It is likely your flight back to US will leave early in the morning so you will need to be in Venice the night before. Would suggest you spend that last night at one of the hotels near the airport who operate a shuttle. Look at Booking.com for names; you often get a better deal booking direct with hotel.

On arrival in Venice take a fast train from Mestre to Rome. Rome’s Termini station is well situated for the sights and nearby hotels such as Aberdeen come well recommended by members of the Forum. I personally liked Hotel Smeraldo which is closer to the river and also within walking distance of most major sites.

Coming back to Venice take the train right on to Venice itself and find a hotel on the Island, except for that last night. Remember when using the Trenitalia web site to use the Italian names, Roma, Venezia.

Laurel nailed it!

The suggestion immediately above to go to 4 places is just plain crazy

My $0.02

Yup, I’m with Laurel and the rest, two stops, Venice and Rome, Rome first if the travel schedule allows. The one addition I might suggest would be a stop in old town Orvieto, just over an hour north of Rome by train, just to experience a beautiful and ancient small hill town, in addition to the two larger and heavily touristed cities. You could do this as a day trip from a Rome, maybe just afternoon into the evening, or as a stop from Rome back to Venice, but that would add a new hotel and all that.

We have taken our 3 grandsons' at 11 or 12 separately to on trips that THEY designed to the EU and Rome was on all their lists. I would urge you to go with his agenda-yes, it may be more limited than an adults' ideas but work with it.
Highlights for all 3 were the Underground tour of the Colosseum, a day trip to Pompeii, hanging out at the Park Villa Borghese, and the St. Peter's climb to the at the top of the dome and their astonishment that they had to use a rope to get to the very top! Dad, he told you where he wanted to go-yes Venice is nice, but a high speed train to Rome is pretty cool(along with lots of Pizza{weird! eating pizza with a knife and fork?} yummy Gelato and pasta) at 12.

I would spend a day or 2 in Venice and the rest in Rome, rome, rome.
The best thing to give your son an understanding of the ruins is to make reservations for this fantastic multi-media presentation, a recreation of a Roman home (palazzo). As you walk around, you hear descriptions of what daily life would have been like for a upper class family, see projections of the art that would have been on the ancient walls, hear the conversation, water running, music, all while enticing one's imagination that a ruin...was once a building with a purpose. It's a wonderful recreation that will help him understand what he is seeing when he sees ruins all over Rome, entertaining for all ages. You have to make reservations ahead of time, for an English tour, and if you go leave some extra time to find the place as it is not clearly marked and you must be there on time as it is a timed entrance---group tour. Excellent.
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g187791-d2179620-Reviews-Le_Domus_Romane_di_Palazzo_Valentini-Rome_Lazio.html

Also, Torre Largo Argentina is a place in the middle of the city, in the midst of all the hustle and bustle, the location of J. Caesar's assasination, but there are ruins surrounded by an iron fence, somewhat submerged from street level, and when you glance down, you will see dozens of cats cavorting, rolling about, sunning themselves on the ruins. My teens loved watching this playful display---big break from museums and being indoors. Highly recommend.

Have a terrific trip!
SuzieeQQ

How many nights is "a week" (7, 8, 9)?
I also second Laurel's idea. Fly to Rome the day you land in Venice since you are already packed. Spend 4 nights in Rome and then train back to Venice. For me, 2 full days (3 nights) was enough for Venice. Add one more night if you want to do Murano & Burano. From Rome you can do a day trip to Siena for a change of scenery.

From Rome you can do a day trip to Siena for a change of scenery.

Spending 6 hours on a train ( 3 hrs each way) does not impress me as a good use of time , especially for someone with only a week.

For a 'change of scenery', Orvieto or Ostia Antica would be more easily managed

joe,
You are right. Probably a better option might be Florence (1 1/2 hours) from Rome.

This is all incredibly helpful! We appreciate it SO much!!!!

If you only have a week, it would be crazy to go to more than 2 places. Travel time will eat up your vacation time. I would stick with Venice and Rome.

Seriously? A 12 year old boy. Go to Modena. If your boy is like most he'd rather see Ferrari's than the Coliseum.

Hi! Not to be so indecisive but this is the first time get to travel with only one of my kids so this feels remarkably easier than when I was jetting all over France with all 4 of my kids haha 😉 so idea of hopping on a train and going to a couple smaller towns sounds amazing and so relaxing!! He’s not a giant fan of bustling cities, so all of your daytrip recommendations sound perfect. (his best friends grandma lives in Tivoli so that’s alresdy on the list!) I even found a cooking class on the outskirts of Rome that sounds perfect!! Am I crazy to do Roma and out towards Tuscany (with some day trips) instead of Venice on this trip?
Thanks for your wisdom!! So excited!

We just did Italy with a 12 year old girl and found that 3 days in Rome, 4 days in Cetona (Tuscany) and 2 days in Florence was just about right. It was nice to schedule city-country-city since the paces were so different. We did very kid friendly things in the cities - the Rome in a Day bike tour and the Twilight Culinary Food Tour in Trastavere neighborhood were our daughter's favorite things in Rome. In Cetona, a small village of about 3,000, she loved walking from our villa to the piazza, and just hanging out in the piazza and people watching. In Florence we searched and found interesting street art/graffiti and that became her fun project to locate and photograph. The train rides between destinations were another fun project for her as we put her in charge of finding the platform, picking/locating our seats, etc.

Good luck! Sounds like a great time with your son.

Since you have to fly out of Venice, I would spend at least 2 nights there. The night before you fly out, obviously, and the one before that. Your son might enjoy learning to row a gondola. https://rowvenice.org

My suggestion would be to immediately train to Rome once you arrive in Marco Polo. A four hour train trip, so it depends on your arrival time.
You say that you have a week, assuming seven nights.
Do four nights in Rome and three in Venice, or three and four.
Venice is fun for kids, a completely pedestrian city, except for the water buses.

Go to the maritime museum near the Arsenale in Venice, they have a bunch of boats and small ships there. Check out the carvings on the loggia of the Doges palace. Ride a traghetto across the Grand Canal, go to the fish market. Visit Torcello and climb the campanile.

Best book for Venice is “Secret Venice” by Jonglez. Use it to map out a walking tour of the city, looking at the quirky sights.

Once he sees a fire boat going up the Grand Canal, full noise, 25 knots, he’ll never forget it, or an ambulance blasting off across the lagoon, any kid would be impressed.
While some would say that a couple of days in Venice is enough, we have spent almost a year there over eight trips and are still discovering things.

I took my 9 year old grandson to Italy and we did everything we could fit in...I did drive so we had the benefit of being spontaneous. We had about a week as well. We saw Venice, Cinque Terre, Florence, Pisa, a village or two in Tuscany, and Rome. We rode a gondola, took the cheesy photo of him holding up the leaning tower (he wanted to go there) had gelato in CT, he dipped his toes in the Mediterranean, threw a coin in Trevi fountain, visited a few museums, walked a ton, took lots of pictures, and so much more! He got a taste of Italy...and I have the most priceless memory. I have done slow trips with adults, but every time I take one of the grandkids we see as much as possible...I never want them to feel done with a town, I want them to leave yearning for more. He can slow down when he returns!