Italy/Switzerland 12 nights w/kids 11 & 13

My trip report is a few years old, but it covers several of your planned locations. What month of the year are you planning?

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/trip-report-switzerland-italy

The long leg here is the northern Italy to Switzerland/Lucerne/Oberland bit - most of a day.

Other travel times:
Rome to La Spezia is a 4 hour trip.
La Sezia to Lucerne is 8 hours. Venice to Lucerne is 7 hours.
Lucerne to Lauterbrunnen is 2 1/2 hours.

The major choice seems to be among CT versus Florence versus Venice. Each deserves more time than is available, but what is new. But, you are also moving a lot.

Maybe break the trip north with an overnight stop in Lugano/Bellinzona/Como after the CT/Venice/Florence visits. Lugano to Lucerne is easy and fast through the new Gotthard tunnel, or you can spend a day doing the Gotthard Panorama Express (slow train over the old twisty rail route over the pass and then the steamer along Lake Lucerne). You won't see more "Switzerland" than in the Gotthard Pass and the Oberland. Then on to Lauterbrunnen, back to Lucerne and then Zurich.

https://www.sbb.ch/en

Have a great time.

From Rome, I would head north to one of the Italian Lakes instead of Cinque Terre. This will break up the long journey to the Berner Oberland. Or reduce your Cinque Terre time to 2 nights and stop overnight in Stresa on the way into Switzerland. Lugano, as suggested above, would work as well, but would be more expensive (it is in Switzerland, after all!)

My apologies for my lack of detail in my first post....I am hoping for some feedback on where to go for the second 3 nights in Italy and how to best spend 6 nights in Switzerland. We are definitely sure that we can’t cover all of that ground in Italy during this trip! I updated my first post with clarification 😫 and..thank you!!!!

Gefam - For your second 3 nights in Italy after Rome, I would do 3 nights in the Lake Como region. From Lake Como, go to Lauterbrunnen (Berner Oberland), then head to Lucerne, and finally fly out from Zurich to head home.

Rome - 3 Nights

Lake Como (Town of Varenna) - 3 Nights

Lauterbrunen (Berner Oberland) - 4 Nights (Day trips to Murren and Wengen)

Lucerne - 2 Nights

With logistics in mind, consider Florence for the 2nd stop on your trip. It is on the high speed line from Rome to Milan (then Switzerland), and nobody ever complained about having to spend a few nights in Florence!!! Venice is a little out of the way to the East, CT is out of the way to the West and Varenna is an hour out of the way from Milan (all beautiful and worth a stay but you have limited time). Hop on the train in Florence and after a few connections to smaller and smaller trains, you can be in Murren which is just magical IMHO.. And I would give Murren 4 nights. Lucerne is great as well.. Yes it can be costly, but take advantage of the COOP supermarket (there is one in the center of Murren). If you load up on provisions from COOP, you might not have to eat out at any restaurants unless you want to!!!

Getting a hotel in Lauterbrunnen for a family of 4 can get pricey, so you might check out renting a trailer at www.campingjungfrau.swiss
You could also get by with one less night in the Cinque Terre. Once the kids take the trails between the towns (done in half a day) and you see a couple of towns and maybe swim, you can move on.

I have taken my kids to Lauterbrunnen (age 13) and we could easily spend 2 weeks there. My kids liked it so much they returned to the same trails as adults. Click on my name to find a link to our dozen favorite trails there, with maps and pics.

Jean, thank you for posting your trip report from a few years ago. It not only helps me with my Switzerland planning for the summer, but brought back nice memories of our Stresa trip. I really liked your thoughts at the end about being flexible and how to really make the most of travel with others.

Gefam, I could offer two possible suggestions for your family. We took our three kids who were teen/young adult age to Lucerne and Engelberg. Engelberg was only an hour from Lucerne and it got us up in the mountains. We had one truly spectacular day to go up to the top of Mt. Titlis (over 10,000 ft., three cable cars to get there) and experienced the snow in July. I think we will all remember that day for the rest of our lives. On the way back down from the mountain top, we stopped in Trübsee and saw a parade of cows, and enjoyed walking around the beautiful lake there. There were hammocks on the lake shore and rowboats we could use. It was so special to do that with our kids. Then we just got back on the cable car back down to Engelberg. After two nights in Engelberg we stayed in Lucerne for three nights, and enjoyed a lake steamer cruise to Weggis for a day. Then it was an easy train right to Zurich’s airport to fly home.

We loved Switzerland so much that we are going back again this summer, but after extensive reading we will be heading to Mürren in the Berner Oberland. We thought staying up in the mountains for a week sounded amazing after how much we enjoyed Engelberg. There will be lots of hiking trails to explore on both sides of the Lauterbrunnen valley. We are so excited to be able to stay in one beautiful place and really savor the mountains.

Have a great trip!
Laurie

While in Lauterbrunnen, you might want to consider a day trip to Grindelwald where you will find Grindelwald First activities

https://www.jungfrau.ch/en-gb/grindelwaldfirst/

Lots of fun activities for kids and adults. Views are great as well. My Husband and I enjoyed the day here.

Also in Grindelwald there is a short cable car to the Pfingstegg toboggan run.

Shoe beat me to the suggestion of staying at Camping Jungfrau. We will be spending a week there in late September. We are 4 adults, so we are renting a mobile home. It is a significant savings over 2 hotel rooms. They have a variety of ways to stay there, including cabins and a hostel.

Thank you, ALL!!!!!! :). I realize this is in the Switzerland forum but I’m now leaning toward just doing our best to concentrate most of our time there. Thank you so much for all of these fun ideas and places! Sooooo...appreciated!