Venice with young kids

[SnowCurl]

Has anyone been to Venice with young (or older) children? We have 3 aged between 2 and 7 years old and have never been abroad with them. I'm wondering how the logistics works so would be grateful for any thoughts here please x

We took our girls to Venice in February. It wasn't so busy or hot then and if you eat away from the main tourist areas it isn't expensive.

We all loved it, it was amazing.

I would choose a city holiday for very young children.

Wouldn’t

When I read the thread title my first thought was kids falling into canal

Does it have to be Italy. Alcudia Majorca is lovely for kids, nice safe beach, shallow water to quite far out.

Alcudia, Majorca, Shortish flight too.

Verona is beautiful. It is also massively crowded and overpriced, especially in opera season which is most of the time you want to visit

What do you actually want to do with your kids on this holiday? And more importantly what do your kids want to do?

Because TBH I'm not really seeing Padua as a kids daytrip either. It's a busy city where the best thing to do is to see the Giotto frescoes in the Scrovegni chapel. This is a religious experience for anyone into art history but not so much for a 2 year old.

Hmm, yes fair point about "day trips". Virology, that beach does look lovely. Will check it out. We are doing a UK beach holiday in Summer. So was hoping to do a long wkend abroad to just jump in and get on. We do like city wandering-
The kids are happy doing most stuff. Was perhaps thinking a bit ambitiously :/
Italy was on my mind as haven't been for years and can speak conversational Italian. Thanks for all of your posts.

I love Italy and would definitely take my toddler son to Lake Garda, Como, even Rome or one of the other large cities. I would never consider taking him to Venice! We were there a few weeks ago as a couple and kept congratulating ourselves that we had left him at home as it is one of the most child-unfriendly cities I've ever visited. Not only is the landscape unsuitable, the attractions are adult - churches, museums, history, architecture, gondolas, glass. We thought a child would need to be about ten before they visited and got much out of it.

Hope you have a great holiday whatever you do.

We went to Venice on the way home from Trieste. DS was 4, DD2. DS was a bolter even at that age and it was pretty scary. If you have a very calm, quiet child it would be fine. One who will make a run for it the second you let go of their hand, choose somewhere else! At least until they're older.

If you want somewhere with water I'd go for Amsterdam as a first overseas place. There's less of it than Venice and the bridges are easy (rounded not all with steps).

I would say no to Venice for young kids too. I always recommend staying in Treviso for anyone wanting to visit Venice . Ryanair actually fly there. It’s a Venetian town , with canals, walls , art galleries etc, loads of bars and restaurants, 30 mins from Venice and easy
To go to Venice, Padua. Verona on the train for a day trip, but not crowded or touristy. But if I had young children I would go to Lago d’Iseo which is a small lake with an Island where no cars allowed, where you can stay and lots of things for kids to do.

I absolutely love Venice but wouldn't take kids this age. We went the first week of October and it was still absolutely rammed - the vaporetto to Murano and Burano was absolute madness and it's a long trip back.

Italy is my favourite place and I would go to any of the other bigger cities with small kids but not Venice - the pavements and bridges etc are just so narrow, so many people etc. I don't think I saw a single child under 10 when I was there.

Florence is beautiful, I would definitely go there with younger kids (when it's slightly quieter ideally as it's also busy). Lake Garda would be wonderful. I'd go to Rome with them. We went and stayed in a villa in a small village near Volterra before we had kids, and could go off from there and explore various places, but also had somewhere quiet to retreat to!