Thank you all so much for all the help, our trip was amazing!

Thanks for the trip report. Glad you had a nice time!

Thank you for posting about going to Herculaneum first and then Pompeii. I will do that for our upcoming Italy trip. Thanks!

So glad you enjoyed Paestum, it is irresistible to me.

Fantastic that you had such a great trip! Glad you invested the time beforehand for good planning that allowed you to make the most of your time there.

The 7:30 start time for dinner: much the same in France too, and something definitely to be aware of. Along with gelato, next time maybe carry some nuts (almonds or similar if you all don't have allergies) to stretch out the afternoon and make it more comfortably until the evening dinner hour.

Sounds like you had a really great attitude, which also enhanced your experience, I'm sure. Good for you all!!!

nw please stick around and add your experiences to the discussions. Looks like you're a observant traveler.

Northwestern,
what do you mean you loaded maps into your phone and were able to see them. I assume this was offline. No wifi connection. So what app did you use? We are leaving Wednesday and this could be very helpful
Thank you

Joyce, there are multiple options for offline maps. I use CityMaps2GoPro (by Ulmon). You download city or regional maps when you have Wi-Fi access, then the app uses GPS satellites (not cell-phone connections) to track your movements. You can search for individual street addresses and some landmarks, too. The only problem I've had is in historic districts with narrow streets and multi-story buildings that make it hard for the phone (or tablet) to pick up the GPS signal. But the basic maps are still there and you can search for addresses; you just can't see where you are on the map.

I think I paid $4 or $5 for the app a year ago, and I can keep downloading maps for new destinations at no charge.

Whichever app you choose, download your home-city map now and play around with it so you see how the app works before your trip.

Thankyou so much for posting also. Love to hear your experiences. And I too am interested in the question already asked about the " maps "
I would also like to know about your Scavi Tour and the process you went through to get in. Security line, if you had 2 securities.

Again. .thanks
Pat

We have iPhone 6. We just used the little preloaded map app on the phone. When we were at the apartment on wifi we looked up the map for the city and looked closely (zoomed in) at the areas we would be headed to. So that map information is all in the cache, as my husband would say. He knows all the details, I just used it. I just know when we were at the Trevi fountain we could open the map app and see that we were there, the dot showed us there, and we could figure out how to walk to the next area. The roads and monuments were all there. Didn't cost a thing. We only used trains between cities so this worked for us.

RE food, my kids are not big nut eaters anymore, that is what I have used for years to lengthen the time between meals. We brought peanut butter pretzels with us, I knew they would need post dinner snacks. These worked great until we ran out. Crackers with peanut butter was substituted but that doesn't carry as well. We managed and no one ended up in the hospital for low blood sugar, so all is good. I took a lot of bars(belvita, nut and fruit, sweet and salty and oats and honey) with us and they were what the kids would eat as a late night snack or midday snack. So glad I packed them, we used them all.

Great report. How did you find your apartments? How old are your teens? Did you go recently? I could not tell? It was very hot in Rome last month with my teens. It really slowed us down.

My teens are both 17. We were in Italy the last two weeks in July and the first week of August and yes it was very hot Rome ,95-97 the whole time, we sweated buckets and drank tons of water. (It actually rained while we were in La Spezia/Cinque Terra/Pisa.) We carried around several small bottles of water (one each on hot days) and refilled every time we saw a fountain. We wore sun hats I had two small foldable paper fans that proved to be invaluable. My teens gave me grief when I pulled them out at first but they used them a lot in Rome. We are from Oregon so we are not used to heat but knew what it would be like and were as prepared as we could be. Pushing the water was huge for us, we have experienced dehydration and knew we didn't want to have that happen. In the heat of Rome we did take an afternoon rest a few of the days.
I found the apartments on airbnb and vrbo. I had specific needs and wanted to be very central. I only chose ones with a high number of positive reviews.

Enjoyed your report. We used Airbnb last year and had no problems so I am using them again next year. With all my researching I have found Airbnb to be better priced for the same apartment on another site.

Northwestern:

Thank you for sharing your insights and suggestions. We are leaving for Italy in just over two weeks, so your advice is very timely, especially about Herculaneum/Pompeii and loading maps into your cell phone - I'm working on how to do that this week:)

Why was taking the water bus (I'm assuming you mean the vaporetto?) in Venice a mistake? We are planning on taking the bus to Piazzale Roma from the airport and then the water bus to get to our apartment, as suggested by our airbnb host.

kangaroo,
We took the aliguana from the airport into venice, not the vaparetto, (that runs inside venice). What your airbnb host said was what we should have done. Our host suggested the aliguana because we did not have to walk far from the aliguana line stop to the apartment, no need to get the vaparetto that night. It was just the very long line to get on a water bus(aliguana) from the airport, we watched two boats leave and and they only run every 30 minutes. A boat just sits there for 20 minutes. And you can't see a thing. Then people cutting lines, excuse me I have been here over an hour, get away. I had been up over 30 hours at this point and I was just done.

On the question of loading maps on cell phone and then having access while offline, I use HERE maps, have found it to be fantastic. I put in information from the comfort of home in the weeks before my trip, make sure I've synced to my phone, and then when I arrive at my destination - magic maps without using data!!

It's kind of like that box I have in my kitchen where I open the door, put dirty dishes in, press a button, and after a time, I open the door again to find CLEAN dishes . . . technology, I love it!

p.s. great thinking on carrying the bars and pretzels and crackers. It indeed sounds like you had what you needed!

Not sure what time of day you took the Aliguna boat into Venice from the airport when you experienced the long line. We just took it Monday around noon and were able to board the first boat that was headed down the Grand Canal - the Orange Line.

Would you mind sharing your itinerary? We are heading to Italy next summer with two teens.