We will be winding up our trip in Italy in Venice in March. Due to ff ticket redemptiom scheduling limitations we are leaving 36 hours apart. We will be spending 3 days in Venice together, then he leaves with our youngest child and I will still have almost 2 full days before leave with my 7 and 10 year old. I think after 3 days the kids may need a change of scenery. any suggestions for a good day trip or overnight trip would be welcomed. Our flight doesn't leave until 9:00 pm and we will have turned the car. Thanks.

The Palladian Villas of the Veneto would be an excellent choice.

Padua is nearby, but I've never been.

Padua university has mementoes of Galileo and of the teaching of anatomy, an an old anatomy theatre that is almost unique.

Ben Haines, London
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I know <b>I</b> love the Palladian villas, but I'm fsirly sure they wouldn't say much to a 7- and a 10-year-old. It would involve a fair amount of driving through the countryside, but I'm not sure how much that would appeal to children either...

Perhaps Verona with its Roman arena would interest them.

Ravenna is lovely - beautiful mosaics.

I second Verona. We stopped there for an afternoon on the way to the Dolomites. Wish we could have stayed longer. Juliette's balcony (fictional, but fun), the arena, the river, easy to stroll through, great meal in the main piazza.

A little further up the road is Trento. Magical castle, a piazza with beautiful frescoed building surrounding it, gorgeous setting in the mountains.

Verona sounds lovely. I assume we can take the train. Is it worth spending the night?

We enjoyed our day in Bassano del Grappa, in the foothills of the Dolomites. It is a pretty town set on the Brenta River with a Tyrolean feel to it. The train from Venice took an hour as it was a local.

Good morning, Padua has two more
additional places of interest and that
is the Scrovengi Chapel, the frescos and the church of St. Anthony. Richard of LaGrange Park, Il..

Verona is fun, can be done easily by train and you don;t need to make it an overnight.

I was going to agree on the Dolomites until I saw the month was March, they could be a bit rainy and foggy if you are talking about late March. If you are talking about the first two weeks, it should be OK still ski season. You might ask for opinions. You can get to the Belluno and Bolazno areas in 2 - 3 hours. Very Swiss-like in their atmosphere, IMO. I would do this as an overnight rather than a day trip so you don’t feel rushed and can get up in cable cars, etc. I assume you will have some winter gear, otherwise, the Padua and Verona suggestions are good. I just thought the kids may have had enough of Italian towns....

Verona would not be my choice. I found it pretty boring. Think about Bolzano. Here you can see Utsi the iceman. Think the kids would love that.

Thanks for all of your comments. I'm thinking of crossing the Dolomites off of our list because we prefer to travel with less gear. We will be in Italy from the beginning of March starting in Rome, heading south to Sorrento and surroundings, then onto Umbria or Tuscany for a week. Then we will head up to Venice.

I would love to hear about Uozi the ice man!

Bolzano also has a really big park/playground next to the river, and a very nice farmer's market. And the museum of archeology (Oetzi's home) is great -- very new and attractive. My kids were fascinated. The town is surrounded by mountains so you get really difference scenery from Venice.

There is direct train service from Venice. My only hesitation is the trip might be a little long.

Hmmm. Sounds like a real possibility. Thanks

Hi P,

&gt;I think after 3 days the kids may need a change of scenery. &lt;

Will you have visited Burano and Murano?

Do your kids play soccer? If yes, just let them play with the other kids at any campo.

I don't believe we will have visited these cities. And yes, my kids do play soccer and have had wonderful experience joining games at parks in France and Spain.

I will share my favorite brush with greatness story involving a very famuous soccer player. Several years ago we were at a playground in Madrid when a Father and his 2 small children entered the park and started going down the slides. I noticed 2 things right off the bat: the kids were dressed in fabulous cashmere sweaters and the dad had the best blond dye job I'd ever seen. Meanwhile my kids were busy plowing into these kids going down the slide. So we had a little conversation and the dad seemed very wary. I didn't think to much about it until we noticed security detail in uniform posted at each entrance into the park. Then we noticed the VII tatoo on the dad's forearm and realized our kids were plowing into David Becham's kids. That was our brush with greatness.

If you think Burano and Murano are &quot;cities&quot; that you &quot;won't have visited yet&quot;, please please do some more reading for your trip, as you don't seem to know where you will be going. Same with the GPS system on Venice which you asked about on another post, which I don't think will help too much on the alleyways....

You will need some warm clothes for early March in Italy, esp in Florence and Venice, it's going to be cool to actually cold. Even Sorrento is not going to be warm in March. Take a look at weatherbase.com

Cicerone, I have appreciated your comments and suggestions, but feel your last post was more critical than helpful and not in the spirit of this travel forum. This site has been a great resource in helping us plan our european trips. We love reading about other people's travels, not critiques of their questions.

Hi prhirsch,

If you would like to see how the people in Sorrento are dressing, you can log onto www.slowtrav.com. Go to the bottom of the page, and on the right-hand side you will find a link to the Sorrento web cam.

You can add it to your &quot;favorites&quot; and since it's live you can see for yourself what kind of clothing would be needed in March. Our family found it to be useful in planning their wardrobe.