Itinerary-Rome with Teens
 

We are a family of four traveling to Italy early June 2012. We have two sons, ages 17 and 14.
This is our second trip to Europe. We love history, art, great food and absorbing the culture of the place we are visiting. We are flying into and out of Rome and will be staying in an apartment in the Piazza Navona area.
I would love some feed back on the Rome portion of our trip (I'll post Tuscany separately).

Day One: Arrive Rome at 7:45am from Atlanta- picked up by driver recommended by the apartment owner. Drop luggage at apartment. Wander, get our bearings, check out restaurants, markets, etc.
Afternoon-Borghese Gallery, other ideas?
Day Two: Tour with Walks of Italy- Ancient Rome
Afternoon-Church of San Clemente(on our own)
Day Three: Tour with Walks of Italy-Vatican and St. Peters
Afternoon-open...possibly catacombs..Could use suggestions
Day Four-This day is open. We are considering a day trip to Pompeii. My son has taken Latin for four years and the last year was based on a story of life in Pompeii. We may leave this decision until we arrive, depending on what we have seen.
Any other suggestions are appreciated.
Day Five-travel day. Pick up rental car, drive to Tuscany(outside Pienza)
Thank you to everyone, all the research I've done so far has been invaluable!

Also, when we were in London we went to Hard Rock calling in Hyde park(saw Paul McCartney) This was a blast, I'm wondering where to look to see about music festivals or concerts taking place while we are there(June 5-9)

If your kids like cats, you might want to stop by the Torre Argentina Cat Sanctuary.

Have you looked into taking the Scavi tour, which takes you through the archeological excavations underneath St Peters? It's quite interesting and unique, and I think teenagers with an interest in history would love it.

If they like Roman history, they might like the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, a museum near Termini Station. There are important pieces of Hellenic and Roman sculpture, mosaics, an entire room of ancient frescoes, and in the lower level there is an enormous collection of ancient coins. It was a lot less crowded than the other museums when I was there. I absolutely loved it.

My three favourite churches are within easy walking distance of Palazzo Massimo, so they're easy to combine together. These churches are famous for their mosaics-

Santa Maria Maggiore
http://www.sacred-destinations.com/i...maria-maggiore

Santa Pudenziana
http://preview.tinyurl.com/7pudcvu

Santa Prassede
http://www.sacred-destinations.com/i...santa-prassede

Have a great trip!

Thanks Apres, I love all those suggestions.
Do you think Santa Maria Maggiore and the Palazzo Massimo would fit into day two or three better?
Also, we are taking the "Pristine Sistine" tour with Walks of Italy. Do I need to book the Scavi tour separately?
Thanks again for suggestions.

Yes, the Scavi tour is a separate thing onto itself. You have to book it through the Vatican. The booking process is legendary in and of itself, but for history buffs it's well worth it. You don't get much choice or flexibility for the times, so it's possible it might not work for you this trip, but it's worth looking into imo.

Try doing a search for "scavi" on the forum search function, there are multiple threads. This one is a good place to start- the most up to date info for booking is at the bottom:

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...es-history.cfm

I think Palazzo Massimo and Santa Marie Maggiore could fit into either afternoon, depending on the schedule of your guided tours and how long you take at each site. After the Vatican you might not be so keen to visit another museum right away, though.

Thanks for the link, that is really helpful.

Any other suggestions in tweaking the itinerary are appreciated. I want to make sure we're not seeing so much our heads are swimming but also dont want to miss something the boys would really enjoy.

Also, if any one has a link to music festivals/concerts that would be appreciated, I've had a hard time finding that.

THanks!

While you can do a day trip to Pompei, you are essentially wiping out an entire day in Rome to do so. An option is to take the train out to Ostia Antica. Takes about 45 minutes, is part of the normal transit system (Ostia Lido), has far fewer people, you can walk/climb all over everything, has fantastic mosaics and you can have a picnic in the ruins. Plus, you get a half-day back for other things.

My husband and I visited Rome for a week 5 years ago with our then-17 year old son. He was probably not your typical teen age tourist as he had been lobbying us for a trip to Rome ever since studying ancient Rome and Greece in 6th grade. (He is now majoring in anthropology w/ a minor in history so has kept up his interest).

One thing that surprised our son about the trip to Rome was how much he enjoyed the Piazza Navona/Piazza della Rotunda (Pantheon) area. He wanted to go back to these for people-watching most days we were in Rome. He was also fascinated by the Pantheon itself.

Personally I think you should consider going to Ostia Antica instead of Pompeii if you want to take a day trip away from the city during your stay. Much closer/easier and also a very interesting site.

Here are a few other thoughts:

I think going to a museum on the first day after a transatlantic flight is difficult so you might want to reschedule the Borghese gallery.

I am not sure whether you are going to visit the Palatine with your Walks of Italy tour but if not it is well worth spending some time there.

If you decide to visit the Appian Way and catacombs this would be especially nice on a sunday when the upper stretch of the road is closed to traffic. We took the archeobus sponsored by the tourist office and had a good experience but there are complaints it gets very crowded and harder to use during the summer. It goes out to the aqueducts park after the Appian way, and we really enjoyed seeing that area.

We also enjoyed going up the Janiculum (Gianicolo)for the view of the city from the Piazza Garibaldi and the interesting walk down hill (we took a bus up--easier than walking up!) into Trastevere. That would fit in easily in the afternoon after you visit the Vatican.

when you are planning your time in Rome you have to plan around mid day closing times for many churches.

Some churches we enjoyed (several of them very near your hotel):

San Pietro in MOntorio (St. Peter's on the Golden Hill)--notable for the Renaissance artwork in the interior and especially for Bramante's Tempietto in the courtyard. It is basically uphill from Trastevere, downhill from the Piazzale Garibaldi on the JAniculum.
San Pietro is very close to *Santa Maria in Trastevere, another interesting church with beautiful mosaics.

*Santa Maria in Cosmedin--6th century church with a beautiful 12th century tower. The famous Bocca della Verita is set in a wall of the portico.

*Santa Maria Sopra Minerva on a piazza diagonally SE of the back of the Pantheon. Known for the Bernini obelisk in front, Michalangelo's sculpture Christ the Redeemer, beautiful Gothic interior

*San Luigi dei Francesi (St. Louis of the French), with its three Caravaggio paintings

Here is a link to a site that a few people have mentioned on this board and it is supposed to be fantastic.

http://www.palazzovalentini.it/index.php?lang=eng

"One thing that surprised our son about the trip to Rome was how much he enjoyed the Piazza Navona/Piazza della Rotunda (Pantheon) area. He wanted to go back to these for people-watching most days we were in Rome. He was also fascinated by the Pantheon itself."

Same with our three kids. We did this five days in a row.

Thanks Vttraveler for all the great links and ideas! I have more research to do!(of course my family thinks that is my new full time job)

Jamierin-Thanks for that link to Palazzo Valenti, it looks fabulous and I think we will definitely add that to our itinerary.

Thinking about doing Ostia Antica instead of Pompeii(would give us another 1/2 day in Rome) I need to let my son research it to see if it would be as interesting to him.

Also, thanks for confirming that hanging out in Piazza's is a big part of Rome's charm.

I hate tosay it but I think those tours sound awfully short. Not sure how you can see either ancient Rome or St Peter's/Vatican in a half a day. IMHO each is a full day - very full. Sounds like thee tours would be very superficial.

And while I love Pompeii - you only have 3.5 days in Rome - and I wouldn't skimp on things there in order to take a very long day trip to Pompeii.

I have to admit that our son grumbled a lot about our decision not to go to Pompeii on this trip. We told him it was better saved for a trip when he could also spend some time in Herculaneum, Naples, maybe Capri

One thing I forgot to mention was that our family really enjoyed checking out the cat sanctuary mentioned by Apres_Londee. We went by it several times a day and always stopped to see how many cats we could count among the ruins.

Laura - Don't know if I missed you but if you are in Rome on a Friday night and want something fun to do with your kids, the Miracle Players, and English speaking theatrical group, do a 40 minutes production of Cleopatra (a comedy).

Website is here:
http://www.miracleplayers.org/

Have a great trip!

Jamierin, thank you so much! That sounds like lots of fun, and a nice break from sightseeing. I am actually frantically packing and getting everything organized. We fly out of Atlanta Monday afternoon and into Rome Tuesday morning....hopefully we all sleep some on the plane so we can at least enjoy most of the day. Thanks to everyone for all your help and advice, it really has been an invaluable resource. I will try to get my trip report written soon after our return :-)

Hi Laura - Are you back yet? Can't wait to hear all about your trip. Hope it was fabulous!

Yes we are back! Our trip was fabulous!! I cant wait to write my trip report so I can relive our trip! Hopefull I'll have time later this week to start. No one has shown up yet to do the piles of laundry so I guess that leaves me :-)