Venice, Tuscany, Rome with 4 kids(11, 8, 5, 2) - I'll take any help I can get!

Personally, if I was your parents I would grab the 5 and 2 year old for extend grandparent bonding time. Good luck.

Any help you can get? I've never been to Italy. Do you want to hire an experienced mom of four to come along for crowd control? ;) Seriously, I hope you get what you need and have a lovely time.

If your older kids are boys they might enjoy Modena and the car museums.

I too am traveling to Italy with my 3 kids, 10, 8 and 5 at the end of summer. We'll be staying at Podere Cucina. http://www.agriturismopoderecunina.com/en

There is the town of Buenoconvento that is walking distance, an on site cooking class, and a many other great features.

Happy planning!

Jenn

A couple things to add as some (replies and PMs) may think I’m crazy.

I realize 4 kids, at those ages, does not make traveling easy. But, if I wait until my 2yo is 8, then my oldest will have 1 year left with us and then be gone. I believe in showing them the world is bigger than us in the US so I would be doing my oldest a disservice until I wait until it’s easier:). I know some would do it differently than me (only traveling with half the family, or waiting), and that’s fine for them! Just not for me.

Anyway, with that said I know we will be taking it slower. We won’t hit nearly as many sites as many of you couples would. I know I’ll be carrying my 2yo and schlepping a stroller, etc. I think that’s one of the reasons that finding a good accommodation for that middle portion of the stay seems so important to me, so we can relax, spend a lot of our time within 30 minutes of our Farm, casually tour some cities and little towns, without being go go go.

When is this trip? When we were with our kids (teens) in Aug a few years ago neither loved Venice because of the crowds. I honestly can not imagine a stroller on those streets. I know locals would but they are used to it. Rome also was very hot in the summer & the air conditioning not what my kids were used to.

Are the kids used to going to museums? Churches etc? I would spend sometime before your trip to get them used to it. My kids have spent lots of time in Museums before our trips so they know the drill and enjoy learning about other cultures. What a great experience for your kids.

I would look at some of the good books about traveling with kids. Look at the places that have scavenger Hunts or tours for young children.

How are you traveling between sites and what type of hotels? Airbnb’s are you looking at?
Enjoy

Sounds like a crazy fun time! I googled what to do with kids in Venice and this is a link to one of the sites with some fun suggestions. https://www.planetware.com/italy/venice-with-kids-top-things-to-do-i-1-38.htm

One of the suggestions is to look for lions around Venice. Another thing you could look for are unique doorknobs or door knockers. For St Marks and Doge’s Palace you will likely want to reserve ahead of time to avoid standing in lines.

Have a good time!

My earlier remark was kind of flippant but upon reflection along with your response at 6.08, I think it has some merit. I think it is admirable to want to expose your children to a wider world. I support that wholeheartedly. Eight and eleven are great ages. The two year will have no memory and the five year's memory will be mixed at best. We took our granddaughter and her parents at two. She is now 8 with no memory. She was a lot of work for the four of us. Our older son when went us when he was about 10 and younger brother stay home. A few years later younger son was with us while older brother was in college. And in between both of them travel with us.

My point is that I don't think all kids need to travel together to gain that experience. Could be some advantage to doing two now and two later. Just a thought.

Frank - you absolutely make great points. But for the sake of not derailing this thread further and getting to deep into family stuff I’ll just say that what you propose isn’t possible for our family.

For us, we either all go together with our 2 and 5 year olds or we don’t go at all. I’m choosing to go!

Thanks!

Your trip sounds amazing. I have not taken children to Italy (unless you count teenagers :) ). I do have some suggestions.

• Venice:
• Cannaregio region is close to the Rialto Bridge, not Piazza San Marco, but it is a lovely place to stay. We rented an apartment this past June. We were on a quiet square in a neighborhood and it was a welcome break from the chaos that is San Marco.
• I don’t know where you are traveling from, but if you reserve an apartment and are arriving in the morning, reserve for the night before. We arrived at 8:50 a.m. and it was great to be able to check in, get some rest, grocery shop before we hit the town.
• Also, for us with 6 people reserving a private water taxi was a life saver (not cheap about 120 Euros), but having them drop us off near our apartment where our host met us made getting settled easy.

Tuscany:

• A recommendation from a friend of mine with a five year old was truffle hunting. He took his daughter who loved the “Truffle Hunter” children’s book. He said is was the most memorable time and what she remembers most about Italy.
• Otherwise, find a place with a pool and if they have an onsite cooking class, even better.

Hope you have a great trip,
Sandy

This March, we took our son, daughter-in-law, almost 4 year old and 5 month old grandchildren to Italy. We went to Puglia (the "heel" of the "boot") and stayed one week in a small, pedestrian-only hill town and one week in a vacation trullo near another small town. We took day trips in the 9-passenger van we had to rent.

Almost no other tourists except for Italians at Easter in the hill town. Plenty to see and do in the absence of world-famous tourist spots. Rick Steves saying that the farther south you go in Italy the more the chaos is just not true of Puglia --- I can hardly think of a less chaotic place.

Yes, we had to deal with lugging around two carseats, a stroller, a backpack, a portable crib, and I forget what all else, but it was totally worth it.

Of course the two kids won't remember this trip when they are older, but the point was to be with them while they explored and enjoyed Italy. Just for one example, they both loved being in a piazza in the evening, the 3-year-old just running around freely in such a large space and jumping from ledges and watching the older children play soccer and ride bikes, while the baby in her grandfather's arms was the center of an admiring crowd of Italians of all ages (even young boys). I would do it all again tomorrow.

You and your kids will have a great time, too, as long as you plan very carefully and find the three child-friendly places to stay that you need.

Venice

Don't start with deciding an area. Start with deciding what kind of accommodation.

I suggest you look for an apartment rather than a hotel. Much better change of keeping track of the family and much more relaxing - especially in the morning. You don't need to cook every evening. You can find a nice restaurant or you can buy take-away.

Then use http://booking.com or http://wimdu.com or some other search site to find something in your budget range.

To answer some of your questions:

1. The trip is late March through early April
2. We will travel from Venice to Tuscany/Florence via rental car, and we will keep the rental car for our week in Tuscany. Then, we will take the train from Florence to Rome and stay in the heart of Rome, without a car obviously.
3. Accommodations -
4. Venice we will look for an apartment. I was planning on Airbnb but thanks for the suggestion above of Booking.com, I hadn't used it but found some good looking places at reasonable costs.
5. Tuscany, I think I've found where we will stay - Villa Il Paradisino. Very close to Florence, but also in a "farm-like" setting, close to the autostrada for quick transit to Lucca/Siena, etc. Also, the reviews are among the best I've ever seen for an Agriturismo/Villa in Tuscany.
6. Rome - We will find an apartment in the city somewhere!

Thanks!

Quick question..

The itinerary that I proposed above is 3 nights Venice, 7 Tuscany, 3 Rome. Should I consider 1 less night in Tuscany/Florence and add it to either Rome or Venice?

I think the more rural relaxed setting of the Tuscany place we will enjoy more than the bustling cities, and we will be seeing more than just Florence (Siena, Lucca, San Gimi or Arrezo or others). But, I wonder if a 4th night in Rome, giving us 3 full days there, would be better. Also, I see some people talk about how much kids love Venice, maybe I should consider adding there (as we will be jetlagged the first day or 2). I just thought Venice would be the HARDEST city for us (lots of walking for kids, food looks more challenging for kids, etc).

Thoughts?

I took two kids, 11 and 13, across Italy and France. Without knowing your children or their likes and dislikes, there are a few universal truths:

1. Kids like gross and macabre stuff. Skeletons (the relics of saints) in churches hit high marks. Walking through ruins (the Roman Forum and Colosseum) are fun for kids until they get too hot. The Sistine Chapel and Vatican Museum aren't the most kid friendly of destinations. Museums with fingers or other specimens in jars (Florence) are winners.
   
2. Kids like anywhere they can climb to. The dome of St. Peters or of the Duomo in Florence are climbed through claustrophobic inducing narrow steps, but kids love the climbs. Same thing with climbing stairs in the Colosseum.
   
3. Ice cream (gelato) keeps kids happier than sharing drinks from a bottle of water.
   
4. Letting kids select sweets from a grocery store shelf encourages them to try to read. "Dad, I know how to say pudding in Italian--it's 'budino.'"
5. Don't let them buy swords at souvenir shops--they are all made in China and you will have to referee fights with each other with the swords for the rest of your trip and they will leave them behind on a train or park bench and you will have to look all over hell and gone to replace them.
   
6. Mortadella is pretty much the same as Bologna on steroids. Panini are simple to eat and kids seem to like them a lot. Pizza is ubiquitous and kid friendly, as are spaghetti and other pasta like dishes. Did I mention gelato? Coke and other soft drinks cost a fortune in a restaurant, but fizzy mineral water in restaurants is a (kid) crowd pleaser and it's cheap. Avoid desserts in restaurants and tell the kids they can have even MORE gelato after you leave the restaurant. Kids like prosciutto and they like to pick it up and eat it with their fingers.
   
7. Kids will beg you to buy two things. These are, first, the dancing puppets that move in time with the music playing on the street vendor's boom box. They are seductive and each kid will want one. They are a scam and will not work and they will cost you 5 euro each. The other item is the whirligig thing that the street vendor will shoot up into the night sky which will then float back to earth lit up in bright lights. These work, but your kids will shoot them into the air twice before one of them comes down on top of an awning or a bus and you will be unable to recover it.
   
8. The best way to decide whether your kids will like something is to try and think like a kid.
   

Have fun.

Any help would be great.

You have a high school age niece/nephew to bring along as a 'nanny'? (Or "manny" (?) in the case of a nephew)

Having recently booked my own family trip to Umbria one thing I would caution is your hopes of chilling out by the pool of your farm stay in March/April. I've found that a lot of places don't open the pool until summer and by that they mean June. Many pools aren't heated so they wait for the weather to really crank up.

My wife and I traveled to London and Wales with our daughter, son-in-law and 16 month old grandson last May. Don't over plan as the younger two will need their rest and will get bored easily. I believe he slept through Westminster Abbey among other places. In Wales he wanted to play on the beach in Llandudno. I would plan on spending at least a day or two in an area and "take things as they come". Have a good time.

Drew,

I travel A LOT with my kids - only two of them (now 7 and 13) - Italy has a lot to offer families with kids. If I may make some suggestions....

Perhaps look into some camping options by Florence. Two are "campgrounds" within city limits and you get a small bungalow-type cabin, sort of like a park model, that'll give you two-three bedrooms, a living area, kitchen/dining area, and outdoor space - PLUS - a playground, pool and places to run for the kids. Not a hotel, no great amenities, but basic camping in a cabin type atmosphere, and bonus is that there are usually other kids around, so in the evening, your kids will make friends to play with. Firenze in-Town is the one we've stayed previously and it was nice enough - way better than a cramped hotel room, and less expensive than more centrally located options in apartments.

https://humancompany.com/en

Although if you prefer an apartment, Windows on Italy is who I've used in the past - multiple times - they're reliable, have well furnished apartments and can guide you on locations that work well for families. They're not cheap, but they're also not expensive, especially if you'll be staying for at least a week somewhere.

Personally, I'd - at max - do a day in Venice with the kids.....a two and five years old, with limited swimming skills would have me worried all day about the narrow canal areas we'd be walking or trying to navigate with a stroller for the 2 year old.

Have you asked your kids what they'd like to see? There are so many options, but very few kids really, really enjoy - how many kids want to go explore churches and museums day after day? Not many. But within Italy you'll find some neat open-air type gardens and museums (Jardin des Tarot on the coast north of Rome, Monster Gardens in Bomarzo), hiking options (from Cinque Terre to the Alps), exploring ancient ruins in and around Rome, hitting beach towns along the coast, checking museums often overlooked - Galileo Museum in Florence, Torture Museum in Siena, etc.

Italians LOVE children! We went when our smallest was 10 months old and our oldest was 7. We found that visiting important sites first thing in the morning was very important. Both had more patience. The baby would sleep through it. We used a Baby Backpack, an Osprey Poco Plus. We carried her around. If she fell asleep, we could open the stand, take it off and let her sleep. It had enough room for a diaper bag, enough food and drinks for her for the day. It fit a hydration bladder that I used for the day. It is tall enough to act as a high chair in restaurants. It held her tight so she could not fall out. I got the family ready for the trip by going on forced walks through a hilly neighborhood with everyone carrying day bags loaded heavily. It force my daughter to change shoes and shirts for the trip because she would not listen to me and changed to appropriate footwear. Because of the forced marches, No one complained about walking during the trip. We got the baby used to it by putting her in it for longer and longer each day. If we went to the store, we carried her in it. Take them. Make sure they can each carry their own carry own luggage except the two smallest. My wife and I would take turns going outside if the little one needed to leave a museum. We tried to find a park each day so they could use up their energy. We even went to the beach in Venice at Lido. Have fun. Air conditioning is different in Europe. They mean cool a few degrees. Not the icebox we have here in the States.