Family Tour of Paris and Rome

It is easy to get kids excited about Paris as there are so many sights that everyone has seen in photos and postcards. Touch down in the French capital and your hotel is not far from the Eiffel Tower, and just a couple of Metro stops from the Arc de Triomphe. But there is more to Paris than that as you take a few steps from your hotel, and can admire the River Seine with a stroll along the water, admiring the bridges and street musicians. Breathe in Paris and the elegance on the streets, and then find yourself in a Parisian square from which to watch the afternoon drift into the evening as this is a city where you are royally entertained merely by sitting at a cafe and soaking it all in.

With this handcrafted tour, your children will not need to wait long to see the Champs-Elysee and the Eiffel Tower as you head off on a private tour of the Parisian monuments and come face to face with many of the famous images. Admire the ornamentation of Notre Dame, and then compare it to the Gothic wonder of Sainte-Chapelle. Check out Sacre Coeur, and then go for coffee in the Montmartre neighborhood. Spend two hours in Conciergerie, the incredible medieval palace where the stories turn to Marie Antoinette. Your family can keep exploring as long as you would like,  and while the legs may be a little weary later in the afternoon, Paris is packed with charming little places to rest and relax as a family.

Paris can turn the fussiest of eaters into a food lover as the city is a treat for the palate with everything from pungent cheeses to macaroons and sweet treats. By focusing your explorations on food, you will dive into local neighborhoods that are as memorable for their atmosphere as they are for their architecture. Again, you will have a private guide and the pace of the tour is flexible, dependent on your mood rather than any prescribed schedule. Linger in places you like, experiment in the local markets, and take your time – on a family tour it is usually better to see fewer places at a relaxed pace then try to cram everything in.

Start today in a local market, going on the hunt for the best raw produce, trying out delicacies that come from across France ranging from cheeses to flavored sausages, from truffles to garlic. Then take a walk through Saint-Germain, a quaint little neighborhood of 17th- and 18th-century streets. Bakery smells mingle with sweeter aromas, guiding you towards a famous chocolatier. You can all get your fingers sticky here, trying out handmade treats and perhaps trying the macaroons. End the tour in a typical Parisian bistro, where you try more cheeses and nibbles, some of them paired with wine or sparkling grape juice. You will be full and finished by mid-afternoon, and there are so many places you could visit later in the day.

There is more to Paris’s art scene than the Mona Lisa, but that evocative stare is an excellent way to get the children into the Louvre. With your local art guide, you will take a look through the galleries with two hours enough in this grand museum as long as you know where to go and what to skip. After the oil canvases and historical paintings, you will discover another side to the city’s art scene with one that would probably make the impressionists exclaim in horror: street art. Epic murals have been cropping up all around the city and you will go out on the hunt with your children leading the way as you tick off cryptic clues and answers. As with the previous days, your evening will be free, and your guide can recommend family-friendly restaurants where the food is sublime, but the style is not so serious.

Skip the queues and head up the Eiffel Tower this morning, an icon that is good to keep in reserve for your last day in the city. The elevator journey is famous, and the views are legendary, out over the Seine and the city you have come to love. This day is kept free for your family to decide on a plan, perhaps visiting the palace in Versailles or another one of the many engaging art galleries. Simply finding a little square and a cafe terrace is part of the attraction as well, coffee and a croissant along with uninterrupted time together. Paris is much easier to get around than people give credit, with the Seine a great way to navigate where you are. The metro is efficient and connects all the essential stops – you can even disembark for a photo with the Arc de Triomphe then take the escalator back down and continue your journey.

Fly Paris to Rome direct and check in to the Eternal City. The city feels so different from Paris with the contrasts really quite stark. From croissants and chocolates, it is now to gelato and pizza, old treats that waft aromas down pre-medieval streets. The architecture has also changed with many memoirs to Ancient Rome found just footsteps from your hotel. Rome’s traffic can be chaotic and off-putting to families, but you rarely spend any time on the busy roads. Instead, for most of the five days, you will be in the ancient heart of the city where some of the lanes are hardly wide enough for scooters. You can stay within the old pedestrianized areas, rarely more than a few minutes walk to an old piazza. So check into the hotel and check out what’s around the hotel today, including the Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps.

The smells will guide you into a small pizza kitchen, where you all will put on your aprons and learn the art of making pizza. In a neighborhood of central Rome, you will gather around a wooden table and start to assemble your creations. The most important thing comes first – decorating a chef’s hat and looking like a professional pizza maker. Then, it is down to business as you roll your own crust, create a homemade sauce, and then slather on the prosciutto and mozzarella before sliding it into the wood-fired oven. It is obviously gelato for dessert, and your whole cooking lesson is accompanied by stories and songs.

Leave the pizza restaurant incredibly full as it is impossible to leave a single slice when it’s your own creation. Move next to walk it all off by delving into underground Rome, the spooky catacombs your afternoon destination. Thousands upon thousands of bones fill these ancient tombs, accompanied by stories that cover over two millennia of history. Skulls and femurs, mummies, and skeletons, these enormous piles of bones are pretty baffling to behold. There are over 40 of these catacombs, and you will visit a series of interlinking burial places to learn of the ancient rituals and early Christianity. Admire the decorations of the Crypt of the Capuchins and Church of St. Clemens as well as the subterranean levels as you wonder how many souls are beneath the ground in Rome.

Come back above the ground today, and the monument you will have already admired from the outside is yours to explore. Step into the Colosseum, and you will sense the history. You can easily picture the gladiators as you feel the hallowed stone and dust beneath your feet. You can see how the Colosseum has changed over the centuries thanks to new virtual reality glasses, and with your private tour, you can also step beyond the red rope and explore the third tier of this great amphitheater, the best place to have Colosseum photos without other people in the background. While the details excite, it is the scale of this monument that is most impressive.

You will be walking amid history in the Colosseum, and then reenact history with an afternoon spent at Gladiator School. Your children will be put through their paces, training in the same way gladiators used to do in a way that is both lovely and often humorous for you to watch. It is not really about conflict and sword fights, although the kids will put gladiatorial costumes on and go through a few mock battles as they see how ancient Rome planned their battles. Your children will be tired after a day as a gladiator, so find a beautiful piazza, grab a drink or two and watch the world go by. Rome, like Paris, is a wonderful city for people watching and relaxing into a quiet rhythm.

Minotaur the monster has the head of a bull and a human body while Athena and Dionysus stand proud in statuesque form. Cyclops looks across at you, and in the world of Greek and Roman mythology, the deities are as crazy as they sound. You can spend the morning on a treasure hunt, ticking off tales of Jason Grace, Jupiter, Athena, Hades, Aphrodite and so many more. It really is a genuinely fun tour, a treasure hunt through a huge museum that is packed with statues and murals to the gods. A morning of mythology is followed by a free afternoon, today a great time to venture beyond the heart of Rome. Consider the seaside ruins of Ostia-Antica, maybe a neighborhood like Trastevere, or even the high-speed train to Tuscany or Tivoli for the afternoon.

A treasure hunt is also a good way to keep your kids engaged in the Vatican City, involving them in conversation and something fun as you all go about discovering some of the world’s most famous artists. Michelangelo, Leonardo, Caravaggio, and Raphael are all included, and there are so many legendary paintings and frescoes to see throughout the Vatican Museums. Take a special passage from the Sistine Chapel to St Peter’s Basilica, and then admire how the Swiss Guards protect the holy staircase for the Pope. And of course, there is St. Peter’s Square, and of all the piazzas in Italy, there is nothing like this one in the Vatican for a grand place to rest after the artistic treasure hunt. The afternoon and evening are left free, and as with all days in Paris and Rome, the choice of restaurants is endless.

With one last morning in Italy, enjoy one more cappuccino and the last chance to spend an hour on a cafe terrace, watching the world of Rome unfold before you. An airport transfer brings your tour to an end with a smooth ride back to catch your international flight.