I hope both experiences will stick with her for life. She has seen that the world is a big place - that other countries are in some ways similar to ours, but in some ways very different.
We're not expert travelers, but we learned a few things on this trip that might help if you decide to take the children on an Italian adventure.
Lingua. One way to get children excited about the trip while also preparing them is to introduce them to the language.
We downloaded two iPhone apps - iSayHello and Basic Italian for Dummies - that help teach basic phrases. Dov'e il bagno? (Where is the bathroom?) became a favorite, although the most commonly encountered words will be grazie (thanks), prego (you're welcome/please), and ciao (hello).
If you don't have a smartphone, a fun online tool for kids to play with before heading over is Google Translate (http://translate.google.com).
Foto. We bought Joie a $59 digital camera for Christmas, and though it didn't get much use the first three months of the year, it came in extremely handy in Italy.
There are a couple of good reasons to buy children their own gadget to tote around. One, it gives them a project. Places Joie normally wouldn't have had the patience to wade through, such as the National Museum of Rome's Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, with its room after room of statues, became opportunities to document her visit, or to be artistic, or simply to pass the time.
And two, she nabbed some pretty good shots while we weren't looking - of an interesting bit of architecture at the Trevi fountain in Rome and a lovely vista from high above Capri.
She wound up taking nearly 800 photos (more than I shot), including several that will make it into an album.
