Southern Italy with kids?

How about Florence and Venice or Verona? All doable by train, walkable cities and day trips by train as well.

The problem with the AC area in November is that activities are primarily outdoors, and there's very little to do indoors. You will have short days, and in rainy weather, you're very limited. This happened when we were there a few years ago back-lots of rain. Without coastal sight- seeing and no views, we tried to make lemonade, with limited success. Also, some businesses close down in the off- season.

My suggestions would be locations with a combination of outdoor and indoor activities, that stay open all year, such as Venice- Florence -Rome. Venice can feel like a small city if you find lodging away from St Marks Square. Or maybe substitute Tuscany for one stop?

How long will this trip be? Best wishes for a great , multi- generational trip!

Thanks for the replies! I should have explained that we opted for southern Italy because we’ve been to Florence/Rome/Venice (my favourite city on earth) a few times. We thought heading south would make the weather work better for us and give us a new destination, but I get what you’re saying about these places being geared for being outdoors.
We could pivot our plan to the spring, any advice on what weather and activities are like in March/April?

Also, I should add, beyond wanting to do something different than the big cities I mentioned, we’re entirely open to other destination suggestions in Italy, as long as we can keep to the general pattern for the trip I described in my original post. We’d be looking at either that very late fall or early spring, which both look like similar weather profiles, but feel free to direct me to another region. Just looking for something more off the beaten path from what we’ve done before. Thanks!

I love the Puglia region - stayed there twice in May the last two years, but I am trying to picture a good fit between the November weather & mobility issues and also using the trains. For that region, I would select Monopoli & Bari or Lecce.

If you decide to base in more northern cities, Verona and Lucca could be good options for mobility for your smaller town choice. Verona has Mantova, Vicenza and Padova, along with Venice. Lucca is very flat, has the nice strolling medieval wall (it’s very wide) for walking or bikes, some nice indoor sites, close to Pisa. It’s two hours by train from Florence.

I see we posted at the same time. Yes, Spring would probably be much better for Monopoli & Bari or Lecce.

For the mobility issues, check out https://www.allwayspuglia.it/it. They have golf cart tours, ebikes, and segway tours of Alberobello. I used them to rent an ebike, so I would have some wonderful photos of the trulli inthe countryside. The owner is extremely hospitable - highly recommend them. You can take a bus from Bari to Alberobello, but look up the bus stop location, have your tickets ahead of time (Trenitalia app), and be there early because the line can get long.

Ostuni has tuk tuk tours - a very steep and hilly city. Monopoli & Polignano a Mare are both flat. I enjoyed these last two very much! Martina Franca is fairly flat - should be no issues. Locorotondo is tiny - gorgeous, but I would probably skip it because it’s uphill from the train station, and the train station is tiny and unmanned.

For the parameters you set, I would do this:

Fly into Rome, stay 6-7 days. Find an AirBnB in a walkable neighborhood (we favor Campo de' Fiori) near public trans--either the bus or Metro--and set up shop. Live like a local. Shop at the markets, use that home base for breakfasts/lunches, then dinner out. Tons to see re: attractions. Unless you have to, skip the Vatican. Way too crowded--plenty of other stuff to see.

Fast train north 1+ hours to Florence, for 3 days. Stay in a hotel or suite centrally. Walk everywhere. Maybe take a daytrip--like we did-- to Chianti to see a castle, winery and cooking class.

Train south (about 2 hours) to Orvieto, a hilltown in Umbria. Wonderful place for a couple days--rural, but not quite. Something different.

Then back to Rome, about 75 minute ride. Stay in a hotel, do your last minute Roman stuff and fly home.

I think this itinerary is easy walking, low stress, very little time on the trains for what you get. And if the weather is inclement, possible in November but it should still be pretty nice, your plans really won't be altered all that much.

Enjoy your planning!

Love your specific details!

November in Italy is a great time to go --- our favorite month, actually.

Yes, Venice, absolutely, if your mother can handle the little bridges and you all have vaporetto passes to save her walking so much. It happens that we have spent a week or more in Venice on various trips with almost exactly those ages of kids AND my mother. Most recently with my husband who was hobbling around with a very painful ankle that had surgery a couple weeks afterwards.

Also suiting your needs and style: Padua, Lecce, and Orvieto for sure, Modena, maybe Bologna, maybe Perugia, maybe Florence but I'm not quite picturing what the kids would enjoy doing there except "just" living in Italy. I'm thinking that Palermo would be easier for your mother than Naples, but we were last in Naples in November 10 years ago and it was not at all the "chaos" and "grit" that some people don't like about it. Easier to get taxis in Palermo and it's flatter. Palermo has a very compact and walkable center, like Florence and Venice. I'll keep thinking. Torino, Verona.

Nancy

Jumping onto Nancys8’s idea. Yes, Palermo would be a wonderful choice! I stayed there for five days in May 2024, and there’s plenty to do. Lots of amazing museums, stunning churches, mosaics, interesting city, food tours, etc. I took the train out to nearby Cefalu at the coast. Yes, you could easily spend your time in Sicily! Palermo is a quick flight from Rome.

OK, now that I've read your further details, I'm voting for Lecce. I will be there (3rd time) this November, and the last time I was there was March/April with grandchildren and the weather was perfect. We actually rented a van on that trip so we could easily visit other towns, and for one of the weeks we stayed in a big renovated trullo near Cisternino. Lecce has a nice train/transportation museum that your kids would enjoy --- you can go into most of the old train cars.

Long train ride from Rome or fly straight from the Rome airport to the Brindisi airport (what we did on the grandchildren trip).

Hello JustMe, and welcome to the forum,

I think your instincts about going to south for weather is the move. In the north I would recommend looking into Verona which is a walkable, interesting, cafe culture feeling city. It would give you access to Venice for days trips which would be way less busy than during the summer but you'd have to choose your day well depending on weather because Venice in the rain in winter is not a great vacation day out.

Naples is too much. Unless urban chaos is your vibe Naples is often too much for people without kids and potential mobility concerns. I think Salerno might be a good southern substitute. It has some of the chaos vibe of Naples but is smaller and much more manageable. If you stay near the main street of Corso Vittorio Emanuele is it a wide mile long pedestrian street with shopping and cafes that is easy to navigate and traffic free. You have to cross traffic streets between the blocks but there are cross walk lights. And in November that pedestrian street is illuminated by decorative lights. We were there in late October and it was mild and mid-70s during the day and we saw them putting up the lights but didn't get to see them turned on.
https://wanderlog.com/place/details/9532571/corso-vittorio-emanuele

And late in November towards Xmas there is the Luci d'Artista light show if your date line up.

Naples is available as day trip on the train as is Pompeii and Paestum depending on your interests. Paestum is surprisingly accessible with elevated walkways but the site itself is a ways from the train station. It is flat and level road but it is a ways. There is a local taxi that I saw when we were there but I never did find any way to contact it. The Amalfi coast is accessible by bus and maybe by a much reduced ferry service in November but that is off season so while you won't get the crowds much will probably be closed as well.

My $.02, have a great trip!
=Tod

As you know, southern and northern Italy are quite different in terms of historical influences and art history. Before ancient Rome grew, much of the south was part of greater Greece, Magna Graecia. After the decline of Rome in the Fourth Century or so, the legacy of the Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire and the role that Spain played from the 1400s on, for hundreds of years, over the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies / Naples, means the art and the churches are quite different than in the North. The Renaissance did not affect the south as Rome, Florence, Venice and the rest of the north were affected. Caravaggio did have quite an impact on art in the south in the 17th Century.

Major Greek ruins, particularly at Paestum and other sites the Cilento region (southern Campania) and in Puglia might be of interest, as well as Roman ruins at Pompeii and Herculaneum. In connection with those, a visit to the archaeological museum in Naples could be both fun and educational for the kids.

Lonely Planet has a very useful and educational pocket guide to Naples, Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast. That guide also has quite a bit of information about the rest of Campania, including Capri, Ischia and Procida, Paestum and the rest of the Cilento. I understand that the LP pocket guide to Puglia and Basilicata is also very good.

There are many different choices you can make. Whether Naples is a good one for you and your family is a decision only you can make, but spend some quality time with good guidebooks before you decide. Last year, we spent 4 nights in Naples, so we could have 4 nights plus a day and a half in Naples, plus a 1/2+ day trip to Pompeii and a wonderful day trip to the island of Ischia by ferry from Naples. We chose to skip the Amalfi Coast and Capri. Instead, we spent two nights further south on the Cilento coast and we visited the Greek ruins at Paestum and a buffalo mozzerella cheese farm, a very short drive from there.

We also covered a lot of Puglia, including Bari, Alberobello, Lecce, Otranto and more. All in all, we spent about 17 or 18 days in those two regions (Puglia & Campania) and we managed to drive from Lecce, through Matera and then to the Cilento as we connected Puglia with Campania. Of course, we also missed a lot of Puglia, as well, though we did e-bike about 180 miles of it over the course of 6 days. Whether Lecce is your best base in Puglia, or whether Bari, Polignano a Mare or Monopoli are better bases, I can’t say, since we were biking from one to the next (plus a couple of others, with a train ride from near Ostuni to Lecce that connected two parts of our ride through Puglia.). Again, the LP guide for that region might be informative.

Apart from ancient ruins, museums and churches, there are diverse towns, beaches and seaside fortifications to explore and places to hike.

FWIW our TR is at https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/southern-italy-30-days-three-ways-to-travel

Jean, who posted above, also has some great TRs on the forum and she might share those if you private message her.

Enjoy whatever you do … and let us know about it.

1) For Lecce, you need to first carefully check the day trips you could do by train and bus. I'd be far more worried about how to entertain kids in Lecce when everything closes for the afternoon and there is no easy public transit than I would about Naples. I do realize car is not the answer because you'd need a van. I would look at a place along the train line from Bari instead, like Monopoli. You can zip along the coast on train from there, plus you can do day trips into the Itria Valley.

2) Large cities have better public transport in addition to having a ton to do at all times. I think if you have been to any city ever, you can handle Naples. If reading about Naples does not make it interesting to you (forgetting all of the static you may have heard about Naples), then consider Salerno. If you get sunny mild days, you can do day trips to the coast but you still have lots of options for things to do.