Hello all,
First post ever for me.
I just thought that I’d share my experience of traveling to Rome solo with my five year old son. In short, we’ve had an incredible time! Vatican, Colosseum, Trevi Fountains and the Zoo. The Italians are incredibly kind and generous to young children and strangers often smile and say “ciao”. We used public transport when needed and it all worked brilliantly.
We’ve stayed for 3 nights in a lovely bed and breakfast and not had any issues at all filling our days.
I had to be a bit creative selling the Vatican to him, describing the Pope as the king of Italy and when we made our way through to the fresco paintings, his little mind was on overload which was beautiful to see.
The Trevi fountains were lovely too as he could throw money in and make a wish. Again this captured his imagination as he asked tonnes of questions about what happened to the money.
The Colosseum was also incredible for him as we talked endlessly about the gladiators, lions, tigers and bears that fought in the arena.
His highlight though was the zoo. It’s located in Villa Borghese, a huge beautiful park about 20 mins from the centre and was within walking distance of our B&B. Both the park and zoo were fantastic and you can hire an electric car/bike thing to pedal around the grounds after the zoo visit. We timed it just right, around 1430 for feeding time which meant that many of the animals were very active.
Add in incredible pizza, sandwiches, pasta and lashings of gelato and you have a great little trip!