Pre-kids, we could just pack up and go. But a successful city break with kids requires planning. And lots of it. And I want to make sure our City Break to Rome is perfect!
Just as Rome wasn’t built in a day, it takes longer than a day to visit this beautiful ancient Italian city too. Luckily, we have booked to spend 3 whole days in Rome in early April. Hopefully this will be the perfect time to have a little bit of Spring sunshine rather than having the kids all sweaty and overheated in the summer sun.
The flights and hotel are booked. Ready?
Not with kids, we’re not. As with all holidays, we need to move onto the planning stage!
The aim of our City Break to Rome is to give the kids a taste for culture
For me, giving them a taste is the key as Rome is a big city, absolutely packed full of things to see and to do.
I’m going to plan the trip carefully. I want to get a good combination of history, food, music and fun without them getting overtired and cranky. A big ask? Maybe. But I think, with some planning and careful thought, we can do it!
Travelling in Rome with the kids
Aged 6 and 4, Big Boy and Littlest Angel are way passed the point of buggies, but she in particular won’t be able to do miles and miles every day. So the plan is to make sure we work out an itinerary carefully to avoid too much walking around.
I’m a big fan of bus travel, so we plan to hop on and off buses to get from one district to another. I’ve taken a look at a really useful website, The Roman Guy, which has great information on buses, and a ‘how to’ video. Tickets need to be bought in advance from Tabacchi, which will be fun as I’ll teach the kids how to ask too. They love this! And I love teaching them Italian!
If there’s a good circuit that does a lot of the city, we might go there on the first day. Northern Husband has an amazing sense of direction and that will be enough to get him navigated. I’ll just look out of the window and point out pretty things. And then say what they are in Italian.
The Roman Guy mentioned a Roma Pass Card that I need to look into too. Apparently you can either buy it from the airport or at Tabacchi. It seems that it gives you entrance to the Colosseum without queuing plus free metro for 3 days. I’ll need to see whether that’s worthwhile as some of the museums will offer free or reduced entry for Littlest Angel.
Planning what activities to do on which days in Rome
In recent trips to Italy, we’ve regularly fallen foul of closing days. There’s nothing more irksome than rocking up to an attraction and finding that this is its weekly closing day!
I’ve made a list of the sites and activities that we want to visit with the kids in Rome, and will double check their opening days, times and prices.
- The Colosseum is very high on my ‘must do’ list. I think we can probably get a full morning there, and around the Colosseum, without any crankiness. I’ll get lots of information and gruesome tales ready so we can act out being wild beasts and gladiators, and that should keep everyone entertained. Possibly even the other visitors as we’re sure to be snarling around, ‘claws’ out and teeth bared. There’s an amazing Gladiator Training activity that looks really fun, but sadly the kids are a little young for it. We’ll have to come back again!
- The Campo de’ Fiori is also on my hit list of things to do with the kids in Rome. It’s a really lively market full of fresh produce and flowers and general knick-knacks. I might let the kids have a few euro each, remind them how to ask ‘how much’ in Italian and let them choose a souvenir each. Actually, I might narrow that down to a keyring or a fridge magnet each. Otherwise we might end up with a replica of the Spanish Steps, or who knows what else!
- A trip to a Food Market would be great as the kids love going to foreign supermarkets and looking at unusual fruit/veg/fish. It’s a great way to pick up more food vocabulary too. And maybe even to practice asking for things in Italian. And perhaps even to try out some new exciting food!
- The Trevi Fountain also makes the list, if only to throw a coin in and make a wish that we will return to Rome one day! I’ve read that it gets very busy so perhaps we’ll see if we can get there very early one morning and then stop for breakfast.
- The Spanish Steps are a must too. Again, this will probably be an early morning thing before it gets too busy. Although I don’t want this to be too early. I am keen that the kids hear some students moodily playing Gypsy Kings on the Spanish Steps. When I think of the Spanish Steps, I always have Bamboleo as my internal background music.
- The Vatican is on Big Boy’s list. I suspect he imagines that we’ll actually get to meet The Pope. As the kids go to Catholic school, the Pope is very big in our little world! He’s probably right up there in their Top 3 Celebrities. Probably in the company of Taylor Swift and Johnny Cash. I think they’ll also love the Swiss Guards in their very flamboyant outfits. And hopefully we’ll even fit in a few works of art too.
A Pizza making class
It’s going to be Littlest Angel’s 5th birthday while we’re there, so we might see if we can do a Pizza-making class on her birthday. She loves pizza. And she loves making. Perfect!
One of the Pizza-making classes is a few minutes walk from Campo de’ Fiori so we’ll probably hang out here for a while before the class. I’m earmarking this area for a coffee and a bit of people-watching too. Both the kids are quite nosey, so they’ll like this too. Listening in to Italian people chatting really engages them, and they can generally find a word or two that they recognize. An educational stop and a caffeine stop at the same time. Bingo!
Quiet Time Activities
The kids are going to have to do a lot of walking in our City Break to Rome. So, planning ahead, I’ll get together some quiet time activities for coffee stops. I’ll get them a small sketch pad each, plus soft pencil and rubber, and encourage them to draw some things. Perhaps we might even get a close look at some art if I can get the kids to sit and draw it. That might buy us 20 minutes of high culture! I’ll have a look and see what Northern Dad and I really want to see and then sit the kids down there.
Or perhaps I’ll make a kind of Scrap book, with drawing pages and writing pages. And perhaps some pages to list Top 5 things about each place we visit. And of course space for sticking in photos or drawings and bus tickets.
I also plan to make a Rome wordsearch as both kids love doing these. I haven’t tried it yet but this one looks like an easy site to make your own printable wordsearch.
Rome: the Perfect City Break with Kids?
If I can get all the above researched and planned, I’m confident we’ll have nailed the Perfect City Break with Kids. With pizza and gelato for bribes, it’s sure to be a great City Break.
If you have any suggestions on places to go in Rome with kids, please let me know in the Comments. We’d love to hear from you.
