I will be traveling to Venice on 04/20 with 2 kids. Any recomendation for lodging, restaurans and day trips.It looks like everything is booked. I found place in Bollini but after reading many reviews I am wondering if we should stay in this hotel. We were thinking going for a day to Florence.

How old are the children?

What is your budget for the hotel (a triple, I assume)?

Florence, in my opinion, is too far away to make a day trip worthwhile.

How many days in Venice that you wish to daytrip to Florence?

kids are 14 and 11 years old, staying 6 nights

What(or where) is Bollini?

sorry,name of the hotel is Boscolo Hotel Bellini in Venice and on Expedia rate is $224 per night

The nearby island of Burano is easy to get to, and very colorful.

We stayed in Venice a few years ago with our (then) 9-year-old, and she had a blast. The Venice section of our trip report may be of help to you:

http://www.onelittleworld.com/rome_venice_5.html

Oh, and I forgot to mention...if the kids are into Roman-era stuff, Verona is an easy train-ride away and has a large and remarkably intact Roman amphitheater.

http://www.onelittleworld.com/northern_italy_2.html

mdj: Have you done a seach on this forum? Just type in Venice. I will be there the beginning of May and there is a lot of great, recent info if you do the search.

Lodging reco : Venice Palazetto. Its actually a town house in Campo San Stefano. Not sure if you're interested in apts, but you only said lodging.

Daytrips: 1. Verona 2. the islands 3. padua

If your trip is next week, I think soon ANY hotel reservation will be better than none.

I'm not sure how you are looking or why you are having difficulty finding something, you mention Expedia, but have you tried contacting hotels directly? Often hotels hold back rooms for their own reservations.

WOW, leaving in six days and no hotel reservation for yourself and two children. I know some travel without reservations and find lodging as they go along, but I'm a worry wart and want to be assured of a place to lay our weary heads at the end of the day.

Some of us have had good luck using venere.com. Hope you will too. Here are two more sites you might find helpful:

www.govenice.com http://www.meetingvenice.it/servlet/Main

Hi mdj, personally I would save Florence for another trip. You would have a 3 hour train trip each way from Venice to Florence and then back to Venice again plus to time getting to the train stations etc. And sometimes the trains can be late also. My last experience with the Florence to Venice train was that the train was almost two hours late.

And I agree with others, get a hotel booked ASAP . And have a beautiful trip!

for b&b try www.palazzoduodo.com in a great central location, or for an apartment try www. oikosvenice.com. I just got back from 6 days in venice with 4 children and had a good time. A day round the islands are fun - go to Burano and eat Moecche (or Molecche) at Al Pescatori on the main street - fabulous!

6 nights in Venice is far too long. It's really a fairly small place. Go to Florence for 2 days. As already said, a day trip would be a bad idea.

This is short notice for a hotel, but we stayed in a quad room at the FLora which was delightful. You may want to go on Venere.com and see what's available. Rooms for more than 2 are harder to come by. I agree that you should book something asap.

I think FLorence is a little far for a day trip. I think Verona is a possible option for a day trip although we haven't done that but I beleive it's been mentioned in other posts. We did got to Murano which is more of a 1/2 day trip. You can also go to Burano and Lido (there are beaches there).

I think you can keep busy for 6 days but an overnight elsewhere may be a nice also as an alternative to day tripping.