Our friends at HomesAway are offering an exclusive giveaway to Ciao Bambino readers! A lucky family will win a week-long stay at luxury 3-bedroom/2-bathroom estate near Cortona—a $10,000 value!

Set on a large estate producing wine and olive oil, Villa Grandi is ideal for 1-2 families that want privacy, spectacular scenery, and easy access to regional sightseeing, as well as a variety of outdoors activities including walking, hiking, biking, tennis, golf, and horseback riding.

Extensive services is one of the benefits of renting a villa through HomesAway. The giveaway includes pre-arrival shopping (excluding the cost of the food), daily cleaning (except Sunday), mid-week linen change, regional maps, pre-trip planning with HomesAways Travel Advisors, and the HomesAway Home & Regional Handbook.

HomesAway also offers a unique Local Host Service where a local ‘insider’ is there to welcome guests and provide ‘go to’ information during a stay—an amazing resource! Families absolutely rave about this part of HomesAway’s service offering. Click here for full details about Villa Grandi and HomesAway promotion for Ciao Bambino readers.

The drawing will be held on Friday, September 18th 2009.  Click here to enter!

The trip must be taken between November 1, 2009 and October 31, 2010 and is subject to availability. A large selection of additional services including chefs, childcare, private excursions, and car rentals are available through HomesAway on request at an additional cost.

When arriving into a major city, a tour is a fun and easy way to help you get oriented more quickly while giving you a chance to see most of the sights.  The ability to narrow a list of must-see sights down when traveling with kids is key, but that can be difficult when there is a long list of great things to visit.  The bus tours take care of that. You get a highlight of everything from the comfort of the bus. This saves those little feet from trekking all over. Take advantage of the hop-on hop-off options and go back a visit the sights that piqued your interest.

In London, there are many choices of double-decker bus companies and I found myself struggling to select which company to use, as they all have features that they market to families.  What made a significant difference was having a live guide.  My kids had no interest in the headsets, however, when we got back on with a live guide, the guide sustained their interest and the kids retained so much more of the information.

If the guide isn’t great, again, take advantage of the hop-on hop-off benefit and just get on another bus. We used the Big Bus Company.

Everyone was so happy and loved the novelty of the bus experience. We also loved the views.  Enjoy!

Relevant Links:

For more Photo Friday posts, visit Delicious Baby.

It’s easy to get wrapped up in all the behind-the-scenes details for family trips, like planning the itinerary, pre-trip shopping and packing.  However, when the time to take a trip approaches, it’s beneficial to prepare the main characters—the kids. When people ask what we do to prepare our kids before trips, my answer is always a resounding Read!  Read!  Read!

Photo by John-Morgan on Flickr

Reading destination related books and involving the kids in small parts of the research not only helps generate excitement, but also helps determine which activities to choose while at the destination.  Additionally, the knowledge about local sites and history provides a comfortable background for children as they explore unfamiliar areas.  The historical knowledge is especially important because it provides insight about the culture.   Because our children vary in age, we need a variety of books ranging from “The Goodnight” series to more complex historical fiction.  We also combine reference books and fiction to keep it interesting.  Don’t worry if they don’t seem all that into it, they are still absorbing something and it will pay off when you get to the destination.

Often, it’s me that learns the most!  As I read to my children, it provides a refresher on my history and helpful information about the destination.

For suggestions, check out my book list on Amazon where I have posted recommendations for a handful of destinations we’ve visited lately: Italy, France, England, Ireland, Boston, San Diego, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Washington DC and Philadelphia.

If you have favorite books you like to read with your kids, please comment and we’ll add them to this post.

Family Travel Blogger Recommendations

Fiona from TravelMuse: Dr. Suess “Oh, the Places You’ll Go” and Julia Donaldson “”The Snail and the Whale”

MudslideMama from TravelingMamas: (New York City) E.L. Konigsburg “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler.”

Jody from HaveKidWillTravel: (Ireland) Eve Bunting “S is for Shamrock: An Ireland Alphabet”

Elizabeth from TravelForKids: (Italy) Alan Armstrong “Looking for Marco Polo”

Debbie from DeliciousBaby: Byron Barton “Airplanes” and Judy and Ron Barrett “Pickles to Pittsburgh”

Jamie from TravelSavvyMom: (New York) George Selden “The Cricket in Times Square”, (England) Frances Hodgson Burnett “The Secret Garden”, (England) Roald Dahl “Mathida”, (Spain) Munro Leaf “The Story of Ferdinand”, (China) Arlene Mosel and Blair Lent “Rikki Tikki Tembo”, (Italy) Mary Pope Osborne and Sal Murdocca “Vacation Under the Volcano” (Jamie’s kids love the audio version of this)

Mara from Mother of All Trips: (Paris) Brian Selznick “The Invention of Hugo Cabret” and (France) Cristina Bjork “Linnea In Monet’s Garden”

Michelle from Wandermom: (Ireland) Tomie De Paolo “Jamie O’Rourke and the Pooka”

Colleen from TravelMamas: (New York) Peter Sis “Madlenka” and (Paris) Kay Thompson and Hilary Knight “Eloise in Paris”

Check out yesterday’s post on Peter Greenberg Worldwide highlighting six back-to-school getaway ideas.  Fall doesn’t need to mean the end of vacation time. Hotels and resorts are continuing to offer amenity-rich packages to fill rooms right now.

Are none of these ideas appealing?  Check out our Special Offers page for more options.  All requests made through Ciao Bambino go directly to hotel staff for the best and latest promotions and pricing.

Bassano del Grappa

Madeline Jhawar is the owner and founder of Italy Beyond the Obvious, a destination management company specializing in custom travel itineraries in Italy. Her blog is a wonderful source of advice and tips for travel throughout Italy—I particularly love the vivid photography that accompanies her posts.

She lived in Italy working as a guide and now has 2 young children.  Here are Madeline’s tips on exploring the Veneto with kids.

When hopping from city to city within Italy it’s easier – and actually more efficient – to travel by train. But traveling with kids often meansnot traveling light, so train travel becomes a challenge. The solution? Rent a car, and spend a week doing things the whole family will enjoy in the Veneto. The sights below are in the order it makes sense to see them, traveling from West to East.

View from Sirmione by Sanjay Jhawar

Veneto Travel with Children

1.  Visit the lovely spa town of Sirmione, at the end of a peninsula which juts into the lake. Kids will love the castle Scaligeri, and will have fun riding the electric train to visit the Roman ruins, the Grotte di Catullo.

2.  Play and swim at a beach on Lake Garda. In Sirmione, the Santa Maria beach is a great option for families. Otherwise for a great sandy beach, drive to Lazise on the lake’s east shore.

3.  Spend a day at the Gardaland Amusement Park, ideal for kids under about age 14.

4.  Get acquainted with Verona. Bring it to life for the kids through storytelling. This could be a great introduction to Shakespeare: buy a children’s version of Romeo and Juliet, or just tell them the story, and put Juliet’s balcony in context. Walk across the bridge (the longest in the world when it was built! Count the steps across). Eat gelato while wandering along the pedestrian streets in the center of town, or let them run around while you sit with a coffee in the main square, Piazza Duomo. Visit the huge Roman amphitheatre and paint a picture of its history with questions such as: “what do you think this was used for?”; “why did they build it so big?”; “would you have liked to sit on these stone seats for hours, watching {insert their favorite sport here}”; “how long do you think it took to build something like this?”, etc.

5.  Spend a couple days driving through the countryside. From Verona, visit the lovely towns of Bassano del Grappa and Asolo, and since you’re in wine (Valpolicella, Amarone and Prosecco) country, consider visiting a vineyard or two.

End the trip with a few days in Venice, which I think is one of Italy’s most kid-friendly cities: entirely car-free, kids can also ride boats to their hearts’ content, count bridges, see which foods they recognize at the Rialto Market, or run around in one of Venice’s six parks.Buona vacanza!

Relevant Links:

Ciao Bambino recommended Venice family hotels

Ciao Bambino recommended Florence family hotels

Ciao Bambino recommended Rome family hotels

Ciao Bambino recommended Italy family hotels, resorts, and villas

Florence with children, things to do

Tuscany attractions with kids

Rome travel tips and guides

Top things to do Rome

Unique Rome sights with kids

Rome iPhone Apps

Family-friendly dining in Rome

Introduction to Rome with kids (book by the Tourist Office)

Tips for visiting Rome sights with kids

Customizable favorite kid-friendly activities in Rome (written for NileGuide)

Our guide to kid-friendly walking tours of Rome

Italy travel tips – creating a family-friendly itinerary

Veneto with kids

Lucca attractions

Amalfi Coast sightseeing

Italy Art Camp

We didn’t have great weather when we visited Sydney in June, but we managed to avoid rain for the few hours we spent at Bondi Beach. We took the Coastal Walk to Bronte Beach (2.5 km each way) and throughly enjoyed the breathtaking views of this rugged coastline.

Surfers were everywhere—we spent an hour just watching them navigate the big waves.

We ran out of time, but on our next visit we’ll get a meal at Bondi Icebergs Club at the South end of the beach where brave swimmers endure a frigid saltwater-filled pool throughout the winter months.

Waves literally break over the side of the pool. The whole scene is astounding.

We didn’t have kids with us, but the sandy portion of Bondi Beach is immense.  There’s no doubt in my mind that when the weather is warm, Bondi is a blast for kids of all ages.

For more of this week’s Photo Friday posts, visit Delicious Baby.

Relevant Links

Things to do in Sydney with kids

Visiting the Sydney Zoo

Heron Island Resort

1.  Compo Beach is the main attraction for both the locals and visitors with a large playground and a concession stand. The water on the Long Island Sound is calm, making it perfect for young children. In the summer, there are day rates (less expensive on weekdays vs. weekends).

2.  Another wonderful option is Sherwood State National Park. It’s not as well known as Compo, but still has an expansive beach and nature trails to explore.  The wetlands have all sorts of critters, and my girls love to sit by the stream and watch the turtles and sea gulls. There’s picnic area and campground, and if you want to have a sunset barbeque, public grills are plentiful.

3.  Earthplace is a nature discovery center spread out on 62 acres of open space (the largest open space area in Westport). The highlights are the hands-on museum, where kids can touch the animals, and an array of nature trails. The gardens were created to attract butterflies, so this is a fun place for kids to get close to them.

4.  The Westport Library is the perfect venue for breaks from the sun or rain. They have a kids floor with an outstanding collection of children’s books and a play space that includes trains and toys. Art projects are available for older kids.

5.  The Wesport Playhouse, made famous by Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, has fantastic shows. Family Festivities are the productions just for children and run on many Sundays at 1p and 4p.

I love August because it’s the time of year when families that have booked Ciao Bambino recommended properties email us to give feedback on how things went.  I get very excited when the words “trip of a lifetime” are used to describe a travel experience that involves our portfolio!

How does a “trip of a lifetime” happen?

The destination and general good travel luck is important, but more than that, great accommodations and activities can significantly enhance a travel experience.  For school age kids and teenagers in particular, structured activities like guides and classes are often the highlight of a trip, in addition to making a destination or attraction more meaningful.

We’ll interview families about specifics in future posts, but I thought I’d share a few valuable tidbits for families that have European travel plans this fall.

Paris Muse offers private tours of Paris museums. They have special family tours and I’ve heard from 2 different families in the past few weeks that their experiences with them were exceptional.

Context Travel offers walking tours in 9 cities around the world—New York, Philadelphia, Paris, London, Rome, Florence, Venice, Rome, and Naples. Again, they have walks just for families and I keep hearing positive comments about their services.  Nancy went on their food tour in London with her four kids and raved about it.

Walks Inside Venice is another Italy-based tour provider that we’ve used successfully over the past few years for itineraries in and around Venice.  Here’s a snipped from the email I just received, “We had a private tour from Roberta from Walks Inside Venice tours.  She was great, very funny, and knowledgeable about Venice, the girls really liked her and we definitely felt like we got our money’s worth! I would highly recommend her to anyone.”

I can’t write about family-oriented guides in Italy without mentioning One Step Closer out of Florence. While we haven’t had a fresh report back from this season yet, we’ve worked with One Step Closer for years and always get great feedback on their services which include walking tours, cooking classes, art classes and more.  Valentina, one of the owners and a Mom of 2 young children, has always been a good friend to Ciao Bambino and is an amazing resource for families traveling in Italy.

Relevant Links

Ciao Bambino recommended places to stay in France

Ciao Bambino recommended places to stay in Italy

Ciao Bambino recommended places to stay in England

Museums and Kids: A Great Combination

My 13-year old nephew was visiting and I needed to take him to the airport for his flight back to San Diego. Given that he was an “Unaccompanied Minor”, we had to check him in, get a pass for whoever was accompanying him to the gate, and then go through security to the gate. That would be fine, except for the fact that “we” also included my four kids.  So, here I am going through the airport managing five children.  Literally, people were staring at me …

As instructed we got to the airport 90 minutes before departure.  Well, okay, closer to 80 minutes, but that should be fine.  There were only about 10 people in line at the ticket counter, so things were looking good.  Twenty minutes later, we are in the same spot, my two boys (9, 6) have knocked over the ropes a few times, my baby is yelling, and now I’m sweating.  Not to mention that I’m starting to worry about my nephew getting to the gate, but we still have 60 minutes.  Another 10 minutes go by, but phew, we are next in line.

Until … a man up struts a man and informs me that he has 20 minutes to catch his plane and asked to go in front of us.  Under normal circumstances, this would have been fine, but now I’m thinking of the conversation I’d have to have with my sister (older sister— you can understand the hesitation) about why her son didn’t make it onto his flight. I tell the man “no” and suffer through his nasty glares.  The five children are now silent watching this all play out.

Oh good, our turn.  He’s checked in and we are good to go!

We head to the security line.  All the kids are behaving and I hear a woman calling me out of the line.  This happens to be the American Airline representative that is stopping every passenger to have them place carry-ons into that little metal box that says,  “Your carry-on must fit into here.”  You know those ones that they have everywhere, but no one ever pays attention to.  Well, they (American Airlines) have a new policy that they are now checking the size.  After smushing and zipping the bag, it still doesn’t fit.  I turn to the woman with my most pathetic look and say, “Mam, I have five children with me, there was no problem with this bag on the way out from San Diego—are you really going to make me do this right now?”  I think I may even have conjured up a tear.  Seeing her concrete face and checked-out glare, I knew there was no point.

We handed off the luggage, but I’m seathing and manage to sarcastically (it was better than what was going through my head) ask the agent how this new policy was being received by customers.  I offered the constructive criticism that it would be better if they had mentioned this new policy at the check-in counter.  Not interested.

Ten precious minutes had past and we have 40 minutes until departure.

We’re finally back in the security line.  I’m sweating, but now my 2 year old is alternating between announcing in a loud voice, “Mommy is mad” and yelling, “I want the London Eye!”

The security line is not moving.  They are letting all of the LA passengers go ahead of us.  Hmm.  There’s something going on and 10 minutes later, we’re still in the same spot. I’m a wreck and wish I wasn’t so passive.  My nephew has 20 minutes until take off and hasn’t gotten food.  At 5’10 and 13 years old, he needs food for the 6-hour flight—ugh!  Oh, I forgot to mention that he has broken foot which means he needs to get his boot examined at security and cannot run to the gate, which time is now going to require.

Five kids getting their shoes off and on.  Breathe.  Should my 6-year-old be able to get on a pair of Keens by himself? Yes!  I would be happy to help, but the 2 year-old attached to my hip for the last 80 minutes is now coming undone.

We run barefoot to the gate.  The agent is waiting, but he made the flight!  Breathe.

**

I traveled to San Diego with my four kids alone this week.  We shipped our luggage ahead of time which made things much easier.  Here’s a great article by Smarter Traveler comparing the shipping services and providing additional luggage tips.

Yes, our farmhouse rental worked well (Excellent Experience with VRBO Rental), and yes, we had a blast exploring the area (Zip-Line Adventure In … France?), but the real star of our Dordogne holiday was the Ferme Auberge—a working farm with a restaurant serving what it produces, Les Truffières, located next door to our villa.

Next door means we stepped around our hedge and there it was—no driving, i.e. no divorce-producing fights around wrong turns on European roads. The word “fresh” takes on an entirely new meaning when you eat on a working farm.

Our host, Yannick, spoke little English, but he didn’t need to.  When he initiated cocktail hour with an amazing little lavender-infused rosé wine aperitif, all was clear—we were in for a culinary treat.  The kids were equally wide-eyed with their freshly picked juice du jour.

The food was fantastic, but what made the set-up perfect with kids (we went 4 times in 7 nights), is that the Les Truffières experience includes an assortment of grown dogs and a puppy, enough cats to keep things interesting, and absolutely every farm animal you can think of.  A relaxing dinner in Europe with 3 boys under 10 took on a new meaning.

The boys had an absolute blast.  There were kids from all over the world there every night and by dessert, they would all be playing in the yard together communicating in the universal kids language—running, screaming, jumping, and laughing.

Seeing your children have the opportunity to interact with people from around the world in a radically different cultural setting is the magic family travel moment for me.  It’s why I started Ciao Bambino and why I feel so strongly that international travel with kids is life-changing for all.

For more Photo Friday posts, visit Delicious Baby.

Les Truffières. Tremolat, France. Tel: 05-53-27-30-44