We have two kids and are departing soon for a trip to Europe, we will be in the south of France for two weeks and in Holland for one week. In the south of France, we are staying in a house that is located in the Luberon. I drew a circle around the town we're staying in and basically researched the towns within a one hour driving radius. We are then flying via Ryan Air to Holland and staying in an apartment in Amsterdam. The house we're staying in in the south of France is a relatively simple place. My kids are older than yours, but we've made it a priority to pack books and simple arts activities they can do. I expect to buy a jigsaw puzzle. We are bringing a deck of cards, an IPod and a Nintendo DS. There is no TV or internet connection at the house. We've talked to the kids a lot about flexibility. The biggest hassle with the electronic games, is that yes they have the advantage of being small and light, but they need a variety of chargers and power adapters to work with the European electrical current. Radio Shack had the highest prices around, Best Buy was better, but believe it or not, I found electrical equipment in the men's section of Marshalls where they sell things like um, power golf ball washers and the like. I also have purchased and wrapped small items for the children to receive at various times through the trip. Little clay kits from JoAnne bought on sale, they like these, and they cost about $2 each. Calvin and Hobbes books collected from garage sales for about 25 cents each. I sleep mask and ear plugs set, two bucks on sale at KMart. I assemble these and wrap them before we leave -- unwrapping the 'gifts' makes it even more fun for the kids. Oh, crayons and paper are another must. I had my daughter down load a lot of young adult books on CD onto her eye-pod and got an ear phone splitter so two kids can listen to the books on tape on the same Ipod player. Ideally, they'll listen to these in the back of the car while my husband and I talk or listen to our own music up front. We enjoy having down time while we're away, and plan on doing only one 'big' touristy thing a day. When traveling with kids, I like to have a sort of big picture plan, with info about all the sights available in a specific region, but like to play it by ear on a day to day basis, being responsive to people's moods, energy levels, health, etc. I also know in advance that I want to show them certain things, as in categories of things, like in the south of France, it'll be something like one cathedral, one abbey, one art museum, etc. I have a child whose into nature so we've made sure to research natural habitats and will probably get him a book so he and his sister can identify bugs and birds while we're there. I've also taken out library books on the countries we're visiting and left them lying around the kitchen table and we've done some casual thumbing through the pages. I don't force it. I just try to get them thinking a little, and looking at pictures really does that. It's important to remind them that travel is fun but it's also work and some days may be challenging for them. Oh, one more thing, we bring addresses for their friends so they can write postcards. I also take pictures of their friends and keep them stored on the digital camera so they can scroll back and look at the pictures when they feel like they're missing the kids back home.

You are in a great location and won't waste time getting to the attractions on your list. The metro is very safe and easy to navigate. 3 days in Paris has some excellent suggestions. You will see a few highlights and can plan another trip to see more in the future. Here's what I would want to see with my children: Eiffel Tower-yes, climb to the top. The view is spectacular Museum D'Orsay (used to be a train station) Notre Dame (stand on the star, which is the city center) Louxembourg Gardens (spectacular place for a picnic lunch). We stayed in that district once (I think it's the 5th.) We enjoyed Sacre Coeur. Loved the Montmartre area. Full of street artists and lovely cafe's. Many people have written about how to hit the highlights of Paris. Do you watch the travel channel? Rick Steve's has an excellent show and also has books. On our first trip I took his Paris book out of the library to help plan our 5 days. https://www.ricksteves.com/watch-read-listen/read/articles/paris-itinerary One bit of advice: when entering a store or restaurant greet the staff with "Bon Jour" and smile. Almost everyone there speaks English, so if you struggle with your French they will most likely speak English. The French get a bad rap as being unfriendly. I did not find that to be true. As long as you show them respect, acknowledge them and ask for help, you will get along just fine. I love to plan vacations and then sit back and enjoy as it plays out. Plan on doing LOTS of walking and eating! Enjoy!

I consider this forum to be a community - at least that was how it started out. It is certainly not meant to be as narrowly defined as TripAdvisor, which is larger and varied enough to have many specific subforums. Gardenweb also has a travel forum, but it has very few posts, and so it is rather pointless to expect to get much information there. We used to have a dedicated "conversations" section in this forum, but it did not survive the transition from Gardenweb to Houzz, even though many people still wanted it. Since we no longer have that section and many of us still feel like a community, we occasionally have O/T threads - none of which are meant to offend. As for Alitatlia, I will say that I had a very good experience with that airline, but that was two years ago, and I would think that you would prefer to read more recent reviews, since the airline has experienced labor problems lately. I hope it survives, one way or another, as I intend to go back to Italy in the fairly near future, and it had the only non-stop flights from LAX to Rome. I posted the question on this forum because I am familiar with many people who regularly post here, I value their opinions, and I know that many have been to Italy in the past. If I post on TripAdvisor, I have to rely on the kindness of strangers, but I have gotten good advice there as well, especially for Fiji, and I learned about the Fiji forums on TripAdvisor on this forum. By the way, I did a Google search for Alitalia and did not find this thread or forum at all, and so I'm not sure how you found this!

Sabbath, our overnight ferry was Silja Lines. My recollection was that it was nice. I would think that Viking ought to be very nice! Here are the things that I remember: It was mid-July and it never really got dark. At one point in the later part of the evening, we could see the sun nearly setting on one side of the ship and the moon rising on the other side. It was mid-July and it was cold! DH and I thought it would be great to have coffee on the deck before breakfast. We opened the door, got slammed by a cold wind, and went back inside. The speed of the ship combined with the water temperature made it very chilly. It was a smooth trip. Although you cross the Baltic Sea, you are never really out in wide-open water like the Atlantic or Pacific. I had no trouble sleeping. The funniest part of that trip, which has no bearing on your trip, was my daughter hitting DH up for money for the video machines. We were at dinner. She finished and wanted to go play the video machines. DH would give her a bit of money and soon she’d be back for more. He’d give her a little more. This went on for a while until she turned up with money to give him! Unbeknownst to us, she was playing the slot machines and finally hit a small winner! She was 11! Bon Voyage!