london and rome with 13-year -old boy
 

We're going in August, and would love some ideas of fun things to do with our 13-year-old son. He likes music, pop culture, cars, and who knows what else. All suggestions welcome.

..re London, would suggest you go to Beaulieu for a day..easy trip outside of London. a wonderful car museum as well as a beautiful estate. There is a brass rubbbing center at St. Martins in the Field. One of my son's loved it and had a great souvenir. The Tower of London is great at any age. The London Walks Jack the Ripper tour was also a hit..Have fun.

We just returned from Italy with our 2 sons (ages 10 & 13). We had 3 days in Rome (not long enough). Both my kids are interested & pretty knowledgible in ancient Roman history, so I hired a guide, David Lown, [email protected],
who was excellent. He spent four hours with us, going from the Colloseum to thru the Forum and ending near the Pantheon (with stops in between). He did a great job of bringing the history alive, and we got so much out of it. When you see these sites on your own it's hard to envision what it was like 2000 years ago. He really was wonderful.

For music and pop culture and so on all your needs will be met i Camden Town - especially on Sunday when they have the market. There is everything a teenage boy culd want there in terms of clothing etc. It's also where MTV Europe is based so there is some chance of seeing a real life pop-star (tyhey tend to go to te Crown and Goose in Dealncy St which is MTV "house pub").

Lots of well known people live just up the road in Primrose Hill.

My then 11 year old loved the London Transport museum. Another fun and cheap thing to do is to just catch a regular double decker bus, go riding around on the top deck just going around and around,also the double length buses with the concertina joint in the middle. We went to the Air force museum, at Hendon, need to take Thames Link trains,quite a ways out, but great fun. the museum is not at the Hendon rail stop but the station just before hand. and then you take a bus direct to the museum (we were told initally to get off at Hendon, but when we got there the guard said we had to catch a train going back the same way we just came to the next stop, so if you go maybe just check this out. Very doable, had great fun in the flight simultor for Tornadoes. Tower of London of course, get pre paid tickets, not locked into a special day,afterwards walk across Tower Bridge and along the Thames to HMS Belfast, huge war ship turned into museum. My boy spend ages steering the gun turrets and "firing" the guns, keep walking along the Thames and you see where the clippers used to dock, now a lovely shopping arcade. also the Imperial War museum was a huge hit, you can actually experience the blitz, a little scary but a 13 year old could handle it easily. You can see my boy is into army and airforce in a major way. We made the London section (after 2.5weeks in Italy and France) Jamie's choice - he could do what he wanted and we had an absolute ball racing around to all these places. Have a great time.

If you do go to the RAF museum (which is great) you can go o9n the Undergroud - get off at Colindale on the Nortern Line - it's not far from there.

If that's the sort of thing you like then You'll also like the Imperial War museum (and it important for Americans to realise that there WERE other nations involved in the war!)

If your son is interested in the WW2 things, the underground "War Rooms" where Churchill and his people ran things should be a big hit.

Rome has SO MUCH to offer. Start with finding out what interests your son and then zero in....a walking tour with a good guide as has been mentioned is an excellent idea.

definately second the cabinet war rooms, forgot we went there as well. The reason we had such a convoluted journey to get to the RAF museum was there was an underground strike that day, now I remember - all coming back to me. So that info is probably only good if there is another strike! Hope not for your sakes.

The Museum of the City of London is more oriented toward children than many museums. It covers the history of London (starting with prehistory) with lots of emphasis on daily life in those times--in ways that could connect with a child.

Some of the walking tours might be of interest too. Some are only 2 hours, they have many choices, and there is no advance booking required so you can decide to do one at the last minute. I think the website is www.originallondonwalks.com