Kid Friendly Fun in Italy?

We took our 12 and 15 year old daughters to Italy two summers ago. One thing you really want to do is buy tickets to anything you can early so you don't make your son stand in too many lines. I took Rick's suggestion for every museum, to buy tickets online in advance, seriously. Saved us a lot of time! If you can afford it, hire an engaging guide the first day you're in each city. It will make history come alive for your son. Not sure how busy your trip will be, but downtime; to shop or just wander aimlessly was the highlight for our kids. And we tried to eat as much gelato as possible. Everyplace you go locals will be into soccer. If your son is a soccer player, maybe you could get to a match in one of the towns. We also tried to get around in a variety of ways, with each being a lesson for the girls "for when you come back in college"... I think it helped them realize they needed to pay attention and learn. But having said all that, when we got back and someone asked them what they liked the best, the answers were: the flight (all the movies they could watch and food they could eat, we flew Lufthansa...) and THE PIGEONS!

Excellent insights! Thanks so much. The pigeons...LOL. Love the tour guide idea. Were there any you'd recommend?

Hi Suzi, we travelled for six weeks during the summer of 2009 (Spain and France) with our son, age 11, and daughter, age 7. It was wonderful fun for the whole family. If your son isn't used to public transportation, just taking trains, buses, taxis, ferries, etc... will be exciting for him! The parks in Europe have different (and therefore) exciting play equipment than here in the USA. My kids loved just having their parents undivided attention on the trip. During downtime we played games or sketched with them, etc...My kids also love staying in hotels or rented apartments or in our case also homes we exchanged. My kids liked the outdoor markets. We took our kids to the Science Museum in Granada, Spain. They love Science Museums. We didn't drag our kids to a lot of art museums; fortunately, I don't love them either! I think the whole experience will be exciting for your son. We loved it so much that we will be taking another extended trip next summer - 5 weeks in Italy/England. We can't wait. It's fantastic traveling with your children and showing them the world!

We spent 3 weeks travelling through Italy when the kids were 10 and 12. Their favourite memories are from the one week we stayed at an agriturismo in Tuscany. Just enjoy the slow pace of some "Dolce Vita", make sure there is a pool, and do a few daytrips to take in a few museums. Don't move locations/hotels too often. one-night stands are very stressful with kids in tow (as adults as well to be honest).

We took our 10yo daughter to Italy for the first time last year; she loved it, and if you ask for her favorite, she'll say everything. Our daughter loves museums and art; we went to far more of each than I had anticipated. But especially good for kids are the smaller places, such as the "jewel-box" church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli in Venice. We like to travel to both urban and rural locations. With her (husband and I have been to Italy a number of times), we started in Venice (3 nights), then train to Florence (3 nights). Then train to Bologna (1 night, solely because I love Bologna), where we picked up a rental car. We drove to San Marino (a separate country, 1 night, daughter got a big kick from such a tiny country), then the rural Le Marche region, where we spent 3 nights in Urbino & 3 nights in Macerata. Then drove to Rome, where we dropped the car and spent our last 3 nights. I would have chosen fewer cities with more time in each; husband strongly pushed for all of the "big three" (and I got lots of time in Le Marche). I picked Le Marche because we'd never been there, and I wanted a rural area. There are a bunch of castles in that area, which I thought our daughter would enjoy - and she did. I thought she might be bored after the liveliness of the cities, but she said she liked the rural areas too. We stayed at an agriturismo that had a gourmet restaurant - all of our dinner food came from the farm. She loved the small interactive books Kids Go Europe, Treasure Hunt Florence, and the same for Rome. We did not take any guided tours; we prefer to tour on our own, using several guide books.

Thanks for the great suggestions. I love the idea of the smaller sights and the castles. Would love to know more about which agriturismo you visited. This is all great information, folks! Keep it coming.

If you're looking for things like water parks (not sure what time of year you'll be here), amusement parks etc I'd say try doing an online search. I know there's some here in northern Italy but not really sure in the south/Rome area. I'm sure there would be something.

Suzi,
These old trip reprts may help. http://www.slowtrav.com/tr/tripreport.asp?tripid=1356 http://www.slowtrav.com/tr/tripreport.asp?tripid=620 http://www.slowtrav.com/tr/tripreport.asp?tripid=359

Here are some "smaller" places; they're not all so small in size, but are less overwhelming than, for example, the Vatican Museums: In Venice, also San Zaccharia (great crypt below the church); Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni (neat paintings of Sts. George and Jerome); Scuola Grande di San Rocco (paintings by Tintoretto). In Rome, San Clemente (it's fascinating: construction begun on upper church in 1108; lower church was built in the 4th century; built over a Mithraic Temple from the late 2nd or early 3rd century, which is still underneath, along with remains of a Roman house from the 1st century); San Pietro in Vincolo (St. Peter's in Chains) (Michelangelo's "Moses" is here); Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, Rome (Michelangelo's "Christ Carrying the Cross"); St. Ignatius (really neat trompe d'oiel dome); San Agostino (Caravaggio's "Santa Maria of Loreto"); San Luigi (three paintings by Caravaggio, about St. Matthew). Daughter also loved the cat Sanctuary at Largo di Torre Argentina; also the site of Julius Caesar's murder. We're really into art, so we made a point of visiting churches that had great art. But our daughter agrees that there's something special about seeing a piece of art in the physical location that it was created for - you don't often get to see that in the U.S. The agriturismo we stayed at is more accurately a hotel, but does provision its restaurants itself. It's La Case, located in Macerata, www.ristorantelecase.it. One of its restaurants has a Michelin star. The advantage of it being a hotel is that we could book for less than a week.