Rome, Tuscany - then what?

Hi mebe,

Since you are flying RT Rome, I suggest that you add the extra time to Rome and see Venice next time.

Hi mebe, I agree with ira. Especially with a little one, and since you are flying home from Rome, I would spend more days in Rome. The less you have to change lodgings the more relaxing it will be for your family.

And 2 to 3 days (not sure if you are counting nights or days as 3 days would be arriving one day, one full day without arriving or departing and then day 3 would be departing) in Rome without a little one would not be a whole lot of time to explore and enjoy the treasures of Rome. With a toddler you will of course be moving slower, which is not necessarily a bad thing IMO. With extra days in Rome you will be able to "stop and smell the roses", to enjoy the day to day activities in Rome as well as seeing some of the sites that no doubt interest you. And I would imagine your child will get some fussing over. Italians love bambini. Have a wonderful trip.

Thanks Ira and LoveItaly - We orginally planed our trip with the idea of focusing on two areas in two weeks, especially with a toddler in tow. But the more I read the guide books, I became greedy and wanted to see more, more, more! Oh, well...there is always next time. I will admit I am intimidated by Rome (I grew up under redwoods, not skyscrapers) but my husband insists we go since we skipped Paris when we went to France for our honeymoon.

You could take a day trip to Florence, it should take no more than 2 hours total by train (express w/ no/few stops) and there are lots of departures daily.

mebe,
How about: land in Rome go straight to Orvieto for two or three nights, a week in Tuscany, and four or five nights in Rome. See my trip report for ideas http://www.fodors.com/forums/threadselect.jsp?fid=2&tid=34494897
feel free to e-mail for more information

It might be a bit more of a schlep initially, but I think that this itinerary will be even better since it greatly simplifies travel and logistics. You'll be based in two and only two cities:

Fly into Florence or Pisa (depending on where in Tuscany/Umbria you're going to spend the week), arriving on a Saturday. Spend the week in whatever location in an apartment or villa.

One week later (the following Saturday), travel to Rome. Rent another apartment.

Fly home the following Sunday, having spent Saturday night in a hotel.


Admittedly, this schedule presumes that you will be renting a car for the first week. But what it does is it reduces schlepping across Italy down to just one day (the second Saturday) plus a cab ride across Rome on the third Saturday. It gives you the opportunity to rent house/apartment for a week (rentals usually run Saturday to Saturday). Most importantly, as other posters have said, given that you'll likely have to slow down with your toddler being there, you'll be able to enjoy some time to do nothing. What toddler wouldn't love to run around Trevi Fountain or Piazza Navona for a week? :=)

And imagine the little one would enjoy the Borghese Park too!! Sounds like a beautiful vacation to me. I will volunteer to babysit if you want to bring me along

Sweet LoveItaly, you can come with us and you don't have to babysit!

T.

Hello Tiff, the plane is leaving from which airport, which date, what time? LOL. As long as the plane lands in Italy there is nooooo problem!! Cin,cin.

With a toddler you only have about half the sight-seeing time that you have without the toddler! I have 3 grown kids so I remember...That means you have to add twice as much time in each destination...2 destinations is great with a todddler...

Stay in hotels with good central locations, in nice walkable neighborhoods with atmosopheric places to see right nearby...if toddler gets cranky then you can easily retreat to your hotel without a major hassle.

We had 4 nights in Rome without any toddlers, and it still wasn't enough! You can spend a whole week in Rome easily without getting bored. We travelled with 2 active teens and there was plenty to do and see in rome.

How old is toddler? Does toddler like to walk/be carried/ride in stroller? Think about whether you want a place with lots of steps/stairs or not...

Thanks for the great advice!

Henry - I read and enjoyed your trip report. We also want to stay in an apartment in Tuscany, so I will have to check out your links.

tdyls - thanks for the tip about only renting apartments from Saturday-Saturday. That tidbit changes our trip a bit, since we were going to land in Rome on a Wednesday...

Melissa5 - our daughter will be fifteen months by the time we leave. I don't know yet if she will prefer the stroller to the backpack or walking on her own (which she hasn't started yet - thankfully!) Which area of Rome would you recommend we stay? My ideal location in Rome would be exactly what you described. We are going to try to rent an apartment (hopefully one with a bathtub.)

LoveItaly - thank you for your kind words.

I have a MILLION more questions but since I still haven't decided our official time of departure and where to stay, I will leave them for future posts. Again - I truly appreciate your opinions.

mebe, As a mother of 5 I feel can advise to some degree. I think that apartment rentals are the way to go for you. We are going to be in Rome the beginning of July with teenagers now. Oh, how time flies!!! We have rented an apartment at the Barberini Residence thru Romeby.com I have not seen it yet but the pictures look good. It is centerally located and for us traveling with 5, reasonably priced. As for Tuscany, we are using chianti-and-more.com. They have a variety of accomadations available Good luck in your search.

mebe
theres lots of good advice to absorb and heres some more.
A week in each base is good advice but as you may be flying in and out of rome you could do 4 nights rome....7 nights in a villa in the chianti region of tuscany allowing plenty of easy day trips.....and finnish off with 3 nights back in rome where it will feel familiar and certainly not intimidating.
you will love rome when you get to know it and with a toddler the italians will love you all.
have a great time.
links....www.romesweethome.com
and both romeby.com and tuscanyby.com
will help with apartments which are not always sat to sun ,many are 3 or 4 days acceptable,and much better with a baby.

Okay - I am in the middle of slogging through the many apartments available in Rome. I have picked the region around Campo de Fiori and Piazza Navora (?). It looks like a safe, central area with many interesting sites within walking distance of our home base. Thankfully, more apartments have bath tubs than I orginally thought (however, I don't know how important that really is, maybe a fifteen month will get a kick out of a shower
Has anyone rented throught Dolceroma.com? There are a lot of postive reviews on slowtrav.com - can those reviews be trusted? I am also looking at omtour.com, which has mixed reviews. Both arrange transport from the airport, which I thought was a nice bonus. (I should probably start another thread with this specific question...)

Touristblob - I like your idea about splitting our time around Rome. I read on a different thread that Rome is an intense, active city that takes time getting used to. When on our honeymoon, we started with three days in Amerstdam and then went off to Brugges, France and returned to Amsterdam for our last night. It was great to return to a "familiar" city and see how two weeks of travel changed our perspective. So we will see...luckily I still have 5.5 months to plan this ever-changing trip.

If you're flying in and out of Rome you definitely want to plan a few days in Rome or Rome area on both arrival and departure. You might want to consider areas to visit outside the city of Rome as well, there's quite a few very interesting things to visit. Fairly close to FCO is Ostia Antica and to the north a great Etruscan site at Cerveteri. You could also swing through the Sabine Hills in NE part of Lazio on your way back from Tuscany/Umbria region. There's also the lakes north of Rome and Tivoli with Hadrian's Villa to the east as well as many other interesting places to visit. A great resource is the Cadogan's Guide "Rome and the Heart of Italy" it gives some good detail on the popular places to visit as well as things off the beaten track.

mebe
the area around campo dei fiori is our favourite rome base and we found our apartment very comfortable.it was just off piazza farnese but we cannnot recall the name....sorry
rome is only intense and active around the major traffic areas so my advice is to stay central and see as much in central rome to enjoy the true heart of this beautiful city .
walk to your hearts content and you will have a much more relaxed holiday than if you had to contend with traffic every day.