short breaks abroad

[lavender1]

dh has suggested we all go away for a long w/e on first bank holiday in May..

Thought about Rome, Paris...It's 2 adults 2 children and we want to see the sights? for a reasonable price.Any suggestions?

[lavender1]

Can anyone recommend a hotel/ B&B as we need to book it soon, somewhere with lots of culture would be good>

[littlemissbossy]

We (me, dh plus 3 kids) last year stayed at the novotel, marne la vallee, east of paris, quite basic but very clean, reasonable rates, outdoor pool, very good buffet style (but would cook anything else) breakfast, ideal for the kids. 1/2 hour drive west into central paris for the culture, 20 mins to disneyland!!! kids would love you. Three hour drive from Calais. I'm sure you could find this easily on the internet if you were interested

[littlemissbossy]

also, 5 mins walk to train station

[SueW]

We've just got back from 4 days in Rome, DH, me and 7yo DD. I'll post more later as I'm just off out.

[SueW]

We were in Rome Sun-Thursday.

Sunday - went to Villa Borghese park which was busy with rollerbladers, a Punchinello show, fire-eater and Latin couples! DD loved her chocolate gelato from the cafe in the park. First 'real Italian ice-cream'. We went and looked over the city from the viewpoint.

MOnday - The Colosseum (entry 8 euros per adult - make sure you have some small change as they wouldn't take a fifty euro note) and the Roman Forums (no charge to look round but there was a charge to go to certain pparts).

Tuesday - Vatican City inc St Peter's and the Sistine Chapel. Getting into the Sistine Chapel takes ages, even if yo uwhizz through all the museums before it.

Wednesday - Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon. It chucked it down with rain for the first time on this day and we got soaked and headed back to the hotel quite early.

DD managed really well. She had learnt about the Ancient Romans in school last term. We bribed her with ice-cream whenever she seemed to be flagging.

We booked our tickets through ebookers.com and paid an average of £80 per person inc taxes flying with BA out of Birmingham.

Finding a hotel wasn't so easy. Everywhere seemed to be quite expensive and, in the end, we used DH's Amex card travel service and got a double upgrade to a junior suite for the same price we would have paid for a standard room in lots of other places.

Octopus Travel was where I searched initially and this gave us a fairly decent range of choices. I like their search facility which allows you to specify room type e.g. quad, 2 adults plus one child, double, etc.

We used the Lonely Planet Rome book, which has a new edition out this year and it was useful although it could have done with a few less photos of obscure things like sandwiches and insides of bars and more of tourist attractions, IMO.

HTH