Lovely things we will remember forever from our family trip to Italy

Have you noticed that when you get back from a trip everything that you did kind of blurs in your head so that when people ask you what was the best thing you did on your adventures, it’s impossible to remember?  I was looking on Google Maps the other day because someone asked about a place we went to in Italy and I love that all my pins give me such good memories of the places we visited and I realized that I should probably share our favorite places and things we did in Italy just in case they help other people too. We went on a 10 day trip to Italy with kids in April and it was such a cool adventure and Italy has always been a dream trip of mine.  We decided to concentrate this trip on three areas: Rome, Florence and Venice.  We ended up renting a car to drive back to the airport in Rome from Venice where we had an interesting overnight adventure at a pig farm.  (I was recently told by someone they recommend the Comfort Hotel at the Rome Airport for families so I’m bookmarking this for next time too.) Over the course of the 10 days we visited we totally fell in love with this beautiful country and it was such a great family trip.  Have you been to Italy or are you dreaming of going?  I hope if you’re planning a family trip to Italy, some of these things we learned can help.

Using Airbnb for a family trip to Italy

So many people have a love hate relationship with Airbnb, but for families I can’t imagine a more comfortable way to travel than to have a well-reviewed apartment in a cool area of the city with a kitchen and ample space where the whole family to relax after a day of sightseeing.  The kitchen is so keybecause I love to visit grocery stores and buy things and you can only bring home so many souvenirs so the only way to try everything is to eat some of it while you are there.  On our Italy vacation, we tended to eat out at lunch while we explored the cities and we ate so much gelato that by dinner all we wanted was something like soup, bread and salad and this was so easy to make in our Airbnb properties and it was fun to pretend to live in Italy even if it was just for a short time.  We used these Airbnb properties for our stays in Florence, Venice and Rome and we were very happy with the places we stayed in and how comfortable they were for families.

Restaurants we would gladly plan an Italy Vacation for

We don’t go out of our way to go to good restaurants with kids when we travel but we tend to pin a whole bunch of ones we want to go to and if we end up at one of them along our adventures, that is where we eat.  One really interesting cafe we tried on our trip to Italy was Supplizio in Rome. It was such a neat little cafe for a type of cheese and rice ball that we read about in one of the kids’ Rome lonely planet books. It almost felt like we were eating snacks in someone’s living room and although it got very busy with a couple tours while we were there, it felt comfortable and not too crowded.  Trattoria Luzzi was our first and last dinner in Rome and it will probably always be one of our favorites because it was welcoming and delicious.  The guys loved the big bowl of cheese they brought to our table to sprinkle on our pasta and pizza.  Cafe Antico Noe was so close to our Airbnb in Florence and it was absolutely adorable and it also has a cafe in New York that I want to visit one day just to see it.  Il Gatto e Valope in Florence was one of our most tasty meals ever and we chanced on it one day on a walk home from a museum and their homemade balsamic vinegar was something I wish we could have bought.  Pino’s Sandwiches was also a really yummy and simple meal in Florence.

The best gelato we’ve ever had on a family trip to Italy

We were told later on in our trip that the really authentic gelato places that don’t use a lot of artificial ingredients tend to keep their gelato hidden in temperature controlled containers and not piled up on display.  But we enjoyed ALL the gelato we ate and our favorites were in Florence.  We loved Rivereno Gelato because my gelato somehow ended up drizzled with an unexpected hazelnut chocolate sauce.  We also ended up at a place called Ara E Sicilia that had only a few gelato flavors but they were vibrant and fresh.

Waking up Early is the best way to see everything

Getting to the ruins of the Roman Forum in Rome and the Uffizi Gallery museum in Florence at opening meant we had both of these places virtually to ourselves.  I am not an early riser but the rest of my family is and this has been so helpful in travel because it is so much easier to visit things with families when there are no crowds.  Italy in April was crowded but we were told that it was not nearly as busy or crowded as it would be if we came a few weeks later.  Even in Tuscany where it was still a little chilly, we were alone in many of the places we visited.  And because so many kids are early risers seeing places without crowds is one of the biggest benefits of bringing our little built in alarm clocks along.

Rest Stops along the highway

If we didn’t rent a car we never would have seen one of these and I’m so glad we did.  The rest stops in Italy are so different than anything we’ve ever been to in the USA and I wish we had Autogrills along our highways here.  (We were scared of driving because there are tolls along the highway but we made sure we went to ones with a sign that meant they have an attendant or we made sure to follow the English instructions.  We also learned that when you go through a toll the first time you take a ticket that you keep and when you exit you insert the same ticket into the machine to figure out how much to pay.) The rest stops have bathrooms and souvenirs and some even have a variety of food you can buy.  We had one meal at a rest stop for the novelty of it all.  But having a car gave us the freedom to visit many little stops that we never would have seen had we only taken the train.  Road trips have always been an easy way to travel with kids.

Fiesole

We were supposed to visit the leaning tower of Pisa but this was halfway through our trip and we were in a comfortable apartment in Florence and none of us were really into walking on any more tours or seeing any more touristy things.  But we were craving fresh air and relaxation so we slept in and in the afternoon we took a local bus from Florence up the mountain to Fiesole where we had read Leonardo da Vinci had tried out a flying machine.  We bought cookies from a local bakery, tried candy from a candy stand, I bought perfume from a store by the hiking trails to remind myself of the adventure and we had a lovely time just doing the types of things we do in Seattle.  Hopefully one day we’ll go to Pisa, but this was one of our favorite days and it was because we didn’t really do anything.

A farmstay in Tuscany

I really hoped Tuscany would feel like all the pictures I have seen over the years of vineyards, lush greenery and ruins overlooking pastoral valleys filled with sheep.  We stayed at the Agriturismo La Corte del Cavaleirino in Montelpulicano and we went to sleep in a room overlooking vineyards and it was perfect.  There was a cheese shop nearby.  We watched baby sheep run around the fields and bought cheese and bread and wine.

Hidden hot springs

I want to actually go in the hotsprings next time we visit.  We ended up driving through in Bagni San Felippo when we drove from Tuscany to the airport and someone told us about the hot springs in the area so we wanted to see what they were.  When we arrived there was no one was swimming so we didn’t really know how to do the hot springs but as we hiked around the area we saw so many people coming to soak and swim.  It wasn’t something we had planned on doing and getting the whole family changed just seemed like too much of an ordeal for the day but I’m putting this on my list of things I want to revisit when we come back to Italy again one day.

The oldest Coffee Shop in the World

I gasped when I saw the prices of coffee at Caffe Florian, but our family absolutely loves coffee so there is no way we could have missed going to the oldest coffee shop in the world.  We picked a table near a window to the outside plaza where there was a band playing tunes from the Sound of Music.  A little old man danced and sang to all the songs and it was magical just sitting there sipping coffee, drinking hot chocolate and eating ice cream and wondering about all the people who had passed this place since 1720.  We also visited la Casa del Caffe Tazza d’Oro in Rome for espressos and forgot to revisit to get a granita there so that is on our list for next time we visit too.

Tiramisu in Venice

We walked by this place and I saw Tiramisu and another type of cake in the window.  It was the type where you pay by how much your cake weighs and we somehow managed to order a few slices to eat along the canal.  It was so delicious and decadent to eat cake like this and maybe you’re not supposed to but we couldn’t help ourselves-it disappeared in seconds.  When I think about Tiramisu I’ll always remember this place and I have no idea where it is except for it is somewhere along one of the canals in Venice-if anything not knowing where it might be a reason to go back and explore.

Food Marketplace in Rome

I almost forgot this one, but I think if I only had one day in Rome or even in Italy, the Central Market at Rome’s Termini Station is where I would eat to get the most chance of eating EVERYTHING on my Italy bucket list.  There is gelato, coffee, pastries, pasta, pizza and even ramen.  I tried an artichoke dish I’d read about and because so many of the vendors represent popular Italian artisans and restaurants it’s very easy to

A little hidden bookstore in Venice

Wandering into a little hidden bookstore in Venice (the Libreria Acqua Alta) was the most important reminder of our whole trip.  It was the most perfectly instagrammable place and we only found it because we were a little lost in the area and toodled in just like we used to in the old days of travel.  It is so easy to overplan trips and create beautiful schedules to see all the things, but if we had kept to a schedule and hadn’t gotten lost we would not have found this gem.

I hope that if you are planning a family trip to Italy, this list of some of our favorites helps.  And if you do go or you’ve been, I’d love to hear about some of the places you love in the area.  If you have a blog post, feel free to link it below!

(PS. this post may contain affiliate links for products that we love. Also if you love Italy, you might be interested in Dalla Fonte, a new subscription club that sends products from Italy to your home each quarter.

Terumi

Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys.  She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live.  She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)