Hi ,

My husband turned 40 this year and we decided to celebrate it with a Vacation that could be fun for us and the kids .We have a 7yr old boy and an 11 yr old boy & We just got tickets and rented an apt in Rome from Agt 3 to Agt 10... Happy and overwhelm all in one!

I want to do a day trip to Venice .... the rest I want to stay in Rome...However I don't want to pack to many crazy activities and no fun but & I don't want to book tour that I don't need either...

ANy suggestions on Itinerary - and what tours to pay for or not... how can I get cheaper/discount tickets....What should I do early in the morning or later in the day...

Is the gladiator tour worth it?

I heard there is a gelato tour but its only to one place.... My kids would love to do something fun with icecream,

I want to book the vatican/st peters and sixtine - since that will probably eat a day or half of it - any tours for families that you could recommend pls.-

Thanks for helping this clueless mom save summer

Caty

Use a private guide for the Vatican.

A daytrip to Venice from Rome with two young boys sounds like an extremely unpleasant day to me, especially in August. The train ride is between 3 1/4 and 4+ hours each way, and that's not counting getting to the train station, finding the right platform, getting oriented in Venice, then doing it all in reverse. Venice will be heaving with regular tourists and thousands of cruise passengers in August and it could be meltingly hot. The whole idea would qualify as "a crazy activity" IMO.

As for Rome, it could also be mercilessly hot. Get up early, go see a site or two, then have lunch in the shade somewhere, take a siesta, and go back out late afternoon.

I'm not sure what a gelato tour would entail, but there will be gelato at every turn all over Italy in August. Eat fast, as it melts quickly.

It sounds as though you all need to peruse some guidebooks and maps, including the kids.

A day trip to Venice would qualify as a nightmare in my opinion as well.

With under 7 full days in Rome, you should be able to find more than enough in Rome alone to keep you all interested. If you want to do a day trip just to see a bit outside of Rome as much as anything else, there are plenty of places of interest to visit that are a lot closer than Venice.

Why not let the boys pick which one they want to do. I'm sure they know how to use Google.

https://www.google.ca/webhp?sourceid...ips+for+kids&*

I wouldn't take such young children to the Vatican Museum at all, especially not in August, when it's hot and extremely crowded inside. And I definitely wouldn't take them on a guided tour, which will last two hours, by which time they'll be searching for foster parents.

Too bad the summer Friday night visits aren't available in August, or at least they haven't been in the past. These are much less crowded. You might want to consider one of the early entrance option, although I wouldn't have been able to get my kids up and out early enough for those when they were that age. The cheapest early entrance visit available (which is still quite expensive) is the Vatican's own "early entrance with breakfast" option.

http://www.museivaticani.va/content/...-vaticani.html

By "open tour" they mean that you're on your own, with an audio guide. That's better when you're visiting with young children, because you can go at your own pace, and get out of there before the hordes arrive.

The tour with exclusive guide (on the right hand side of the page) is very expensive unless you have a large enough group to split the cost of the guide.

A day trip to Venice will involve a lot of time on the train, but I wouldn't discourage the idea altogether. I've done similar day trips with relatives and friends, not from Rome, but from my home, which is even further away.

I suggest getting the earliest train you possibly can. Bring lunch on the train to save time when you get there. You can buy takeaway lunch at the station. There's also a snack bar on the train, where you can get a simple lunch, which isn't great, but not awful either. The kids may enjoy the train ride, and if they're bored they can nap.

On the way back, eat dinner on the train. You can get better things in the station than on the train. I wouldn't eat at a restaurant in Venice at all. Get a gelato as a snack at some point in the day.

Don't try to do too much in Venice. It will be very crowded; I usually recommend a ride up the Grand Canal on the vaporetto, but I was there last August with my granddaughter, and it was really packed like the Tokyo metro at rush hour. My granddaughter loved it all the same. I would try to spend most of the time away from the more crowded and popular spots.

I **love** Venice but I would do it IF you can spend at least one night there.

A "day trip" will take almost 10 hours total with going & coming back (counting getting to the station, the ride itself, back to the station, the ride itself) with 6-8 hours just sitting on a train and only a few hours to actually BE in Venice... so doesn't really sound very appealing to me.

It's a bit hard for me to imagine how anyone with 2 kids in tow who doesn't know Venice who is planning to land there after 4 hours of traveling will have any idea how to get away from the more crowded and popular spots. Heck, I've been to Venice a fair number of times and I usually spend the first day just barely getting my bearings. I usually defer to bvlenci in all things Italian, but I think this is just a terrible idea.

Oh, and I also wouldn't take them to the Vatican Museums, where they'll see nothing but thousands of armpits and the backs of people's knees as they shuffle along in a horde not being tall enough (probably) to see all the Etruscan urns and such that probably won't exactly thrill them anyway.

Take them to Ostia Antica. Take them down the coast to Sperlonga for a beach day. There are plenty of things to do in and around Rome that don't require being part of the masses in the heat of August.

I think bvlenci is coming at it from the 'obligatory' point of view StCirq.

I currently live 3 hours from Niagara Falls. Whenever we have visitors from another country, it is 'obligatory' to take them to the Falls. Is it worth 6 hours driving just to go and stand at the edge of the Falls for 10 minutes? It isn't to me but I can understand why people want to do so.

These are 'list ticker' things people have on their list. The OP isn't really talking about going to 'visit' Venice. If they were, they would be planning to stay in Venice.

The OP may feel that since they are in Italy, they should see Venice, just as people think that if they are within a day's travel of Niagara Falls, they should see the Falls. The difference is that the Falls really are only worth a day trip from anywhere, Venice is worth more than a day to most people, so they are not equal in that way but they can be equal if what you want is simply to 'tick the list'.

I've had people visit me who wanted to see Venice, and didn't think a long train trip to see it was s problem. From my home in Le Marche, the train trip (round trip) is 1 1/2 hours longer than it is from Rome, and we live half an hour by car from the nearest train station. And yet, the friends and relatives I've been to Venice with enjoyed the day immensely and never once said the trip was too long.

My sister and her family certainly had a great day in Venice. She thought it was her first trip to Italy, but since then a disability has made it unlikely that there will be a second trip. Ask her if she's sorry about the 8+ hours on the train.

A 7 year old boy and an 11 year old boy on trains for 8+ hours isn't something that seems like a good idea to me.

There's a lot to see in Italy, near to Rome, for a week in August. Don't underestimate crowds, is my best advice.

An 8 hour train ride (or 4 or 5 or whatever) each way for an adult who is really wanting to see Venice is different than for 7 & 11 year old kids. I also wouldn't take them to the Vatican.

I just think there are so many more kid-appropriate things you could do that would entertain and still be educational but a lot more child-friendly.

No offense to the OP intended or judgement as to their motives implied but I do have to say that sometimes I wonder at whose agenda is of primary importance when adults travel with children.

A comparison to me is when you see one of those real estate shows where someone is looking to buy a house to live in AND to conduct a business in. A B&B for example.

What is best suited to the one use is not necessarily best for the other. It's very hard to find a property that is a good fit for both. I think travelling with kids is like that. You either take them to Disneyland and they're happy but you are not so happy, or you take them to somewhere you are happy but they are not so happy.

When people post about travel with kids, they almost always ask about 'kid friendly things to do/see'. But they have already decided on where they are going before they ask! That to me means the decision on where to go was not determined by kids criteria but by the adults criteria.

About the only time I think the two sets of criteria can really merge well, is when they go on a beach vacation.

I totally agree. Adults with children of 7 and 11 years visiting Italy who have decided to take a very unpleasant trip from Rome to Venice for a single day and spend time shoulder-to-shoulder on a trek through the Vatican are not really focusing on the kids. Maybe it's their only chance to visit Italy, but heck,leave the kids with the grandparents and do an adults' trip - or organize the trip around the kids.
That's why I said go to Ostia Antica or Sperlonga - heck, go to Anzio and let the kids go to the beach and then go to the war cemetery. Or run over to the beach at Lavinio. Plenty of stuff for both adults and kids to enjoy near Rome. No need to string the kids along on a trip that ticks off just what the adults think you need to do in Rome.

I'll go one step further... ask the kids what THEY want to do!

I've already suggested,

"Why not let the boys pick which one they want to do. I'm sure they know how to use Google.

https://www.google.ca/webhp?sourceid...ips+for+kids&* "

The answer of course is, it won't be Venice.

I don't have a big problem really with the adults choosing what they want to do. Just tell it like it is though, the kids get dragged along whether they like it or not and don't try to fool yourself or anyone else that 'kid friendly' matters. LOL

It's a guilt thing really isn't it. Screw the guilt, when the kids complain, tell them that when they grow up and are paying for the trip, they will get to choose where everyone goes and what they do. Until then, shut up and stop asking 'how much farther.'

I would also say do a day trip to Ostia Antica. Easily reached by train from Rome. After walking around there, get back on the same train line and continue on a few stops to the beach.

My husband and I used a private guide for the Vatican. Although it was not cheap it was money well spent as she was able to get us around some crowds. With kids I would skip the Vatican Museum and concentration on St Peter's and the courtyard.

If you don't get your tickets for the Colosseum in advance(you should), the lines should be shorter at the The Forum. We booked a tour at the Colosseum ticket office when we got there.

Sorry, I have to agree that while Venice is lovely, it is a long haul on the train for a day trip.