crystal

My husband and I are going to take our three adventurous teenagers to Rome for their spring break. We went for our 20th anniversary and have been dying to bring the kids back. Any suggestions as to how we should spend our time? I thought that we'd visit the vatican one day, ancient Rome another, and Piazza Navonna and campo di fiore. Would renting a car and driving to Florence for a day be too ambitious? Should we go to Sienna or another Tuscan town? We want the kids to get some sense of the place with our time limitations. Any suggestions?<BR><BR>

amy

Five days sounds so short for anything other than Rome, but you're the best judge of what your kids are like. With those time limitations, though,I would leave Florence/Siena/Pisa for another trip.<BR><BR>I have one teenager and a 10 year old and met up with a family with two teenagers in Rome last year. We're a big fan of "stay in one place and get to know the neighborhood" when it comes to kids, and you seemed to imply that getting the sense of a country was important to you. We did a lot of touring during the day, but we made our nights quite relaxing. The kids found a local groceria and were in charge of shopping for our sunset pre-dinner get-togethers.<BR><BR>With our vigilant but discreet supervision (imagine four adults strategically located in the mode of the Secret Service) our teenage kids loved sitting around on the Spanish Steps and the Trevi fountain in the evening. <BR><BR>The other family was spending nine days in Italy, so they left us on day four to visit Florence and Milan. Since we were leaving on the sixth day, our only field trip was to Pompeii. <BR><BR>

Pat

We will be going to Rome with our 16, 13, and 6 year old sons next week. We will post with our experiences after!

rb

If you take a day trip to Florence take the train-get there early and take in the sites and city- David at the Accademia, The Uffizi, Duomo and Baptistry, lunch, some shopping after siesta, and then head back to Rome.<BR><BR>Assisi or Orvieto is a nice day trip to see the hill towns.<BR><BR>We did a day trip to Naples then Capri (and the Blue Grotto)- that was an entirely different experience- the typography was amazing. Get Lemoncello and perfume in Capri. <BR><BR>There is so much to do and see in Rome. Your teens will love it.

rb

Wanted to add that teens may really enjoy Trastevere. Another very cool place is the Cemetary of the Capucine Brothers on Via Veneto- a series of chapels made from the bones of about 4,000 monk...a bit gruesome but also very facinating...