aliprowl

Surfergirl, thank you! Yes, just the two of us. Leaving dad at home! Will check out the horribly named Hotel Americano. You've got the teenage male mind down perfectly. He wants to wander and eat, and Verona is a great idea. Thank you!

celestemarie1002

Does he have any interest in video games? My husband is interested to visit Florence in part because it is the historical setting of the game Assassin's Creed (I forget which version...). I myself don't know much about this game, but he's excited to plan the different places we can visit that he knows of through playing it.

ahbonvraiment

cannot be bothered to check US rate but I stayed several times at hotel Flora 5 min from San Marco for about 200 euros. Was in December last time a few years ago.
I have stopped looking for other hotels in Venice.

StCirq

US$300 is more than twice what we are used to paying anywhere in Europe, but we're not looking for luxury or "services." Here's where we usually stay in Venice:

https://www.booking.com/hotel/it/ca-...s=1&#hotelTmpl

We typically go there in winter, but perhaps the price creeps toward your budget in high season.

annabelle2

For a change from art, your son (and you) might enjoy the Museo Galileo (history of science museum) in Florence near the Uffizi. Lots of interesting globes and weird scientific and medical instruments - and Galileo’s finger!

bvlenci

The Museum La Specola, the zoological part of the Museum of Natural History of the University of Florence, is also very interesting. It has a large collection of animal skeletons, started by one of the Medicis about 250 years ago. Some of the animals in the collection are now extinct. There's also a collection of very realistic wax anatomical models, begun in the 1700s, which medical students used to study when dissection of human cadavers was forbidden by the Catholic Church.