Just got back with my kids a month ago. Enjoy the planning, and then enjoy the trip even more!!
Of your list, we went to Lake Como and Venice, with a few hour stop in Florence. My thoughts...
Venice was awesome. We stayed at the Hotel al Piave, which had a family room that worked really well for us (we were a party of five, so harder to find a room than party of 4). Loved feeding the pigeons early in the morning (save bread from the night before) when no one was around. The pigeons would land right on the kids and they went NUTS!! So fun. We skipped the gondola and went for the water taxi to the airport (about the same cost) Kids LOVED the water taxi. We arrived via train on day 1, had two full days and then left morning of day 4 (so 3 nights). We had wandered and seen everything. You could do it in two easily.
Lake Como was amazingly beautiful. We stayed in Varenna the first two nights at Villa Cipressi, which has rooms that will fit your entire family for about 140 euros. I can look it up. Not sure you need three days. We were there 3 days, but one of them was supposed to be for horseback riding (they flaked on us which is anohter story). Plan on touring the lake in one day b/c it cost about 16 euros everytime we went anywhere on the boat (adds up quickly!) We visited Villa Balbianello, which is where Queen Amidala got married in Star Wars. Beautiful, but with a surprising interior. Not cheap to that either, but we did love it. Plan on getting off the train in about two seconds b/c we really did almost miss getting off and wound up holding the doors open and throwing bags off and screaming alot. Very exciting and funny now.
Florence, you absolutely have to climb the Duomo. the kids LOVED it.
Visit Orvieto if you're in the area. Fun towers to climb up, amazing well to climb down and an underground to explore. Could be the kids favorite place. Oh - they also have a funicular. Cool!
Have an amazing trip! Merritt
