One sparkling summer evening last year, I met up in Florence, Italy, with an Italian friend I hadn’t seen in years.
After strolling through Piazza della Repubblica, Chiara and I lingered over novels at a bookstore and then had a long dinner at a lively restaurant near the central market. It was a thrill to catch up with a friend in the enchanting Tuscan city where we’d first met.
My 13-year-old son, however, was with me, and after we said goodbye to my friend, he cut short my reverie. “That was three hours of hearing you talk, talk, talk Italian!” Leo yelled. He was tired, bored and angry.
It was the same tone he’d used at the Uffizi, a world-class museum crammed full of Renaissance art. My husband and I had avoided taking him there before he was old enough to appreciate it, or so we thought. Our visit wound up being a mad dash past Botticelli paintings as Leo aimed to leave as swiftly as possible. On the way out, I craned my neck at all the art I wasn’t seeing.
What’s more, when he’d learned that we were going to some cities from previous visits, he moaned, “What? Again? We’ve already been to Rome and Florence!” Ah, to be a jaded 13-year-old who’s not always aware of his privilege.
What did impress him in Italy? Pokémon cards, a pricey Ferrari shirt and a touristy museum of illusions. He also enjoyed playing the card game Uno No Mercy, which we could have done at home. Oh, and the expensive café on the roof of the Uffizi? Yeah, that was good, too.
It was Leo’s third trip to Italy and one of nearly 10 international trips already under his belt. We were visiting a country where I’d experienced a pivotal semester abroad, which led to a stint as an expat after studying Italian in college.
None of that mattered. Either he was hot or bored or needed to use the bathroom. Or I’d overscheduled our day — something I loathe doing stateside.
Traveling with children overseas is often challenging. My fierce attachment to Italy made it even harder. Why didn’t he love everything about the place that changed his mother’s life?
But since I’m on a mission to convince Leo to fall for Italy, I’ve learned — mostly the hard way — to compromise. And despite some disagreements, my efforts have started to pay off. In fact, he makes the trips special — a thoroughly American boy who nonetheless shares a first name with Leonardo da Vinci and dreams of owning a Ferrari one day.
Here’s what I’ve learned while traveling to Italy with my son.
A funny thing happened on the way to the forum
The afternoon we landed in Rome during our first family trip to Italy in 2018, I found myself renting a somewhat rickety quadricycle in the famed Villa Borghese park north of the city center, even though I was exhausted.
Leo, who was five at the time, had spent our 10-hour flight squirming while draped across my lap. The heat that July day was stifling, and even though the park was near our hotel, it was hard to enjoy it because every minute there felt like standing by an open oven.
The Villa Borghese is full of ancient marble statues, which Leo largely ignored. Already a keen admirer of Italian cars, he was much more interested in how fast we could round corners in the park while in the quadricycle, even if it meant nearly tipping over. He cackled with joy while steering this four-seat open-air vehicle that Italians call a rickshaw. The Roman Forum — and my nap — would have to wait, as would the excellent art museum that’s inside the park.
The compromises continued during a return visit to Rome in 2022, when I found myself ransacking the city for Pokémon cards after an evening of al fresco dining started to wear on the patience of my fidgeting 10-year-old. One moment I was out with friends, the next dashing over to a bookshop. Italian novels are my passion, and I’d visited Mondadori, one of Italy’s largest booksellers, many times. But until that trip, I didn’t realize they stocked Pokémon cards.
If I sound accommodating, while standing in line I fumed to myself, “This wasn’t what I wanted to show Leo in Italy.”
When we finally went to the Roman Forum, I certainly hadn’t planned to cut short the visit because Leo needed to go to the bathroom and preferred to return to our lodgings. I managed to prolong our visit long enough to stick my head inside of the Temple of Venus but quickly had to throw in the towel. It was hot, he was tired and nothing could salvage the outing.
But the scene was quite different at the museum in Florence that houses Galileo’s finger. The Italian astronomer died in 1642 so the finger is exactly as decrepit as you’d imagine, even through the museum’s protective glass case. But Leo, then aged 10, loved it. He was thrilled to learn admirers had severed the persecuted scientist’s middle finger when his remains were moved in the 1700s.
If the finger felt like a gimmick, so did the overpriced drinks — in every city and at every stop. But that kept him entertained, as did his gaming console, which came in handy last year in Rome, when my husband and I slipped out to Piazza del Popolo for a glass of wine. I had qualms about leaving my son alone in an apartment in a foreign country — but Leo didn’t.
