Hotels in Italy with Kids

Finding a hotel in Italy has a few extra complications. Apparently they enforce the two people per room rule. So when traveling with kids you must reserve and pay for a larger room or risk them not letting you stay. While this certainly increased our costs, the layouts were wonderful for our family.

 Here is a photo of our room in Venice. It has a double bed in the middle with a twin bed on either side. This gave the kids plenty of room.

Of course the kids' favorite part of the room was the closet.  They loved to close themselves in and laugh.

Most hotels are smaller than we are used to. Imagine one big building and each floor (and sometimes each hallway) is a different hotel. They share an entryway, but have their own staff, check in, etc. The kids thought it was awesome that we got to walk on so many stairs in Venice.

Here we are eating our included breakfast in Venice.  I don't think we ever saw anyone else staying here, but we did occasionally hear talking behind room doors. I'm assuming they were adults and didn't wake up early and go to bed early like we did.

This is a photo of our room in Rome. Same bed arrangement though this room was larger. The guys working the front desk were so kind and helpful. My one complaint is that while this is listed as a non-smoking hotel and our room didn't smell like smoke, they often smoked while working the front desk. At night we would place a towel under the door so the smell would stay out. The hallway did smell, but we didn't spend a lot of time there.

Here we are eating a small lunch that we picked up from a vendor on the street. It was raining outside and we didn't want to pay to sit down and eat. (Yes, it costs extra to sit and eat most places in Italy.) It was easily the worst pizza I have ever had. It tasted like thick cardboard with flavorless cheese. This was another part of that same room. It was nice to be able to eat in our room without eating on our beds.

Here the kids are playing with their gondoliers they got in Venice. 

The kids' favorite part of this hotel? The tiny elevator. The 4 of us just barely fit on it. You can see my left arm is touching the door. I'm taking up more than my allotted 1/4 of the elevator and I'm not a big person.

This hotel also had an included breakfast. It was in a bar about a block and a half down the street. We each got a drink and a pastry. While many different hotels gave the vouchers to use this place for breakfast, there were also many locals who would stop by for a coffee on their way to the train.

The best part about traveling with kids? We exhausted them during the day and they slept well.