I am travelling with my husband and 3 children ages 11,13 and 16 to Italy this summer. We are driving throught and want to know which museums are a must. I know we will for sure be seeing the Vatican museum. What other museums are worthwhile bringing 3 kids/teenagers to? I know if I reserve too many they will not be impressed. Can anyone suggest a couple more that are worth seeing?
Borghese Gallery? Uffizi Gallery? Galleries in Venice? Thanks,any input would be greatly appreciated!

If you take your kids to museums in the US, which are their favorites? Ones with paintings? Ones with sculptures? Science museums? History museums? Have you thought of letting your kids look at travel books and pick one or two apiece? If you are hoping to spark their interest in art, that's more likely to happen if they drag you to a museum rather than the other way around.

Most of where you are going is an open air museum -- meaning, there is plenty of art, history and even science (Pisa) right out in the open and free to look at. For kids your age, unless one of them is studying art or history or science intensely, they will probably enjoy their trip more if you sit in piazzas filled with great statues by Bernini and Michaelangelo, or talk about Galileo's experiments while climbing the tower in Pisa, or the history of the roman Empire while feeding the cats at the Colisseum.

I woud do a preview on-line to see what y ou're intrested in. You may want to bag - or skip lightly over some of the art museums to see some of the palace museums - or daily life museums.

(We loved the Villa Giuia because it had so many remnants of daily Etruscan life - household goods, cosmetics, fishing gear and implements people used in their daily work. Sometimes thinking about how similar people were 2000 plus years ago is more interesting than another gallery of paintings.)

Or - perhaps you'll decide that you love Canallettos - but hate all of those tortured saint paintings (I forget which saint had all the arrows - not my taste at all).

Kids that age are perfectly well equipped to do their own research and decide what they would like to see and what would not interest them. You don't have to play tour guide with them - make them own the trip by getting involved and making them make those decisions among themselves.

uffizi gallery is great, the museum that michelangelos david is located in is nice too. the museums in florence are nice, i would def look into going to them. Santa Croce in florence is also a wonderful church with many paintings, sculptures, michelangelos and galielos graves are there, and they are made of complete marble, wonderful.

when you go to santa croce you will see in various places where the frescos have been damaged by the flood that ravished florence many years ago. definitly stop in florence and see everything you can in that city, it is wonderful.
since you are going to rome you will see the most breathtaking things and that will be very overwhelming and time consuming, but enjoy!

i love italy its beautiful and offers so much history and art, food, culture. enjoy but def look into the museums and churches in florence. buon viaggio

Just one suggestion - don't forget Michaelangelo's David and the unfinished "slaves". I do think fall06 has a good idea about sitting in the piazza and looking at the fountains and sculptures esp in Rome. Happy travels.