Your Guide to the City...

Choosing a Family Hotel in Italy
By Shannon Venable
Researching and booking a hotel or vacation rental can be a daunting task for every traveller, but the stakes are especially high when travelling abroad with children. We hope these carefully selected suggestions for lodging throughout Italy help you to find the perfect situation for your family holiday. Meanwhile, I'm dreaming of Casali di Colle San Paolo, a family-friendly gem in the Umbrian countryside (mention Italiakids.com at booking for 10% off your stay).



Hotels in other regions:


Rome and Lazio   Florence and Tuscany   Milan and Lombardy
Genoa and Liguria   Perugia and Umbria   Naples and Campania          

Cultivating Culture
By J. M. Pasquesi

Art Appreciation in Rome Can Be Child's Play!

Rome was not built in a day, and children do not become "cultured" overnight. Just like the ancient city of Rome, people acquire culture in layers, especially through experiencing foreign countries, customs, and fine art. For young children in particular, there is no place like Rome to pick up that first, enlightening layer, because their experience will be filled with precious memories of images, sounds, and tastes that appeal to children, with the added bonus being the fact that children are adored by Italians and will likely be treated like royalty everywhere they go!

In Rome, kids develop and improve their young minds while scrambling through ruins, running in parks, and splashing in fountains.

Culture, human activity, and the ability to communicate symbolically through art, architecture, and music, is a defining feature of humanity. The word culture is derived from the Latin word for cultivate, as in cultivate the land, but came to assume the figurative meaning of "cultivate the mind" in the Renaissance—so take your kids straight to the source for a legendary cultural experience. The Eternal City is a world-class urban tableau with unique qualities that make family travel a breeze.

Touring the cradle of Western Civilization can sound overwhelming—museums, art, and architecture do not immediately appeal to kids in the same manner as Disneyworld, but that begins to change as soon as they discover the gladiators, skeleton hunts, and secret passageways that await them. Keep in mind that history and art are not boring; following behind adults on tour is, however, very boring. Introducing children to art, new cultures, and foreign foods is simply a matter of presenting these new experiences in fun and dynamic ways.

Kids like to be active and love dramatic stories, so introduce them to art and history in engaging and active ways. In my book, Rome with Kids: An Insider's Guide, I take families on adult-oriented tours, but I always engage children, too.  Lay some groundwork on the airplane by introducing your kids to a few key historical figures who shaped the city—perhaps by reading them the short, thumbnail biographies I provide.

Knowing a few colorful characters, along with their family symbols (coats-of-arms), will pay off when your kids can discover things before you do! Family symbols adorn palaces, monuments, and sculptures, turning the city into a stone zoo full of dragons, lions, birds, and bears. Imagine your child discovering one of Pope Urban VIII's bees on a fantastic fountain: they will delight in being able to inform you of something for a change! Remember, kids like to be active not passive.

Keep children's needs in mind when your scheduling your days, always pairing a museum with an outdoor activity, like visiting a nearby park or hanging around a colorful piazza, devouring gelato. And don't expect to see a museum's entire collection without a mutiny on your hands. Pick the highlights and keep visits short but memorable by knowing what, and where, the jewels of the collection are before you arrive, then heading straight to them. Eliminating aimless wandering saves energy, keeps boredom at bay, and lets parents see the most famous art works before kids have a chance to burn out.

For an introduction to art, start in the park—Borghese Park. Tiny Borghese Gallery makes a great choice for families because its small size allows for a manageable tour, yet it is packed with some of the most famous art in the world: a veritable warehouse for Bernini sculptures and Caravaggio masterpieces, among other greats such as Rubins, Titian, and Canova. Because it is nestled in a vast park, kids can exit from the gallery and immediately run around, enjoy a picnic, rent bikes, boats, and even peddle-carts, or they can be rewarded afterward with visit to the park's pretty zoo! (Tip: if possible, buy advance tickets to the gallery.) Read more...

© J.M. Pasquesi, all rights reserved.

J.M. Pasquesi is the author of Rome with Kids: An Insider's Guide. For more tips and info, check out RomeWithKids.com