BELLA FAMIGLIA
Three generations take on Venice and Rome
M Y granddaughters, ages 4 and 6, spent a week last autumn in Italy with their mom and me — their grandma. It was a bit of a spiritual homecoming for me. I first saw the magical cities of Venice and Rome in the 1950s when I was around their age, and I wanted to share that special experience with them. And, like Eloise at the Plaza, I wanted the kids to also experience life — albeit briefly — at historic, opulent hotels.
Despite the distance, Italy is a great choice for international travel with youngsters: there’s pizza, pasta and gelato. Mangia, bambini, mangia! And Italian culture is inherently kid-friendly. Folks won’t fuss when the little ones run headlong into people in a piazza; you won’t see waiters frown when they spill their Pellegrino. Italian families out to dinner with kids just order a half portion of most dishes on the menu.
VENICE
We began our trip in Venice, whose watery landscape and maze-like layout are straight out of a children’s book. You travel from the airport by water taxi or aquatic “bus” to your hotel, which they think is pretty cool. And in Venice, there are no cars, so kids can’t run into traffic.
Because the girls are still young, we kept the itinerary fairly basic. We did a quick walk-through of the Doge’s Palace ( VeniceMuseum.com). The girls loved climbing the “golden staircase” with its gilded ceiling and then walking the route that prisoners took across the Bridge of Sighs. That day their journal entries were all about the peephole in that enclosed passageway where prisoners could take a last look outside at the lagoon. Kids under 6 enter free, and you can get same-day tickets easily early each morning — at least off season when we went.
The kids also loved running wild around Piazza San
Marco. True, we skipped the actual church — but really, the pigeons are the main event. But we did indulge in the gelato at Caffè Florian ( CaffeFlorian.com) in the piazza, the oldest café in the world. Grown-ups should order an Aperol Spritz, the national standby: 3 parts prosecco, 2 parts Aperol and 1 part soda. Our kids were suckers for the large green olives that often garnish it.
And, of course, we couldn’t leave town without a gondola ride. Yes, at $85 for a 40-minute journey, it felt a bit like a rip-off. But seriously, Venice without a gondola ride would almost feel like not visiting Venice at all.
At night we slept on seriously chic pillows at the Hotel Danieli (from $382;
DanieliHotelVenice.com), a grand retreat set behind an incredible Byzantine facade next to the Doge’s Palace. Along with lofty ceilings, stained glass windows, Murano glass chandeliers and our own gilded staircase, the girls found crayons with Venice-themed coloring books upon arrival.
ROME
For children in Rome, it’s all about the fountains, where kids can fill their water bottles from the (safe and delicious) running water. Our favorite spout was Rome’s most famous — the monumental and monumentally beautiful Trevi Foun
tain. Even with the crowds, our girls loved it. But even more, they loved discovering their own fountains in nearly every square across town.
Rome may be large, but the girls were in conquering mode. Because the weather was still warm, we spent much of our time outdoors. At the Villa Borghese, for instance, we skipped the museum itself and focused on the incredibly landscaped
grounds, which we explored by four wheeled buggy, little train and on foot.
We saw the Colosseum and did a pizza-focused
Walks of Italy tour ($75 for adults and $72 for children 4 to 12; WalksOfItaly.com). The first 2 hours involved dip- ping bread in olive oils and pestos, as well as sampling cheeses and salamis at the market at Campo de’ Fiori. We worked with a trattoria pizza maker adding sauce, cheese and toppings to our individual pies, which we later ate for lunch.
We skipped the Vatican and about 100 other museums, but every nook and cranny felt like an art lesson.
Our base for all this fun was the Baglioni Hotel Regina (from $276; Baglioni
Hotels.com), known for its eye-catching art deco lobby. On arrival, the children were presented with teddy bears wearing T-shirts with the “I Rome” logo. They (of course) hearted Rome immediately.