FAMILIES + KIDS
Families + Kids
Sailing tortoises and a UFO
Curiosities for children at Palazzo Vecchio
by Margo Lestz
Your kids might find an afternoon spent at a museum as interesting as watching paint dry, but Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio holds some hidden curiosities sure to pique their interest. Who knew that within the medieval walls you can find 100 sailing …
Families + Kids
Cops and salsa
Adventures in raising bicultural children
When you call a foreign country home and summer rolls
around and you find yourself planning a vacation to the old place you used to
call home, you realize how strange your life has become. You are now, in many
ways, a tourist in …
Families + Kids
Animals & Co
A trip to the Pistoia Zoo
What better fun
family outing than a day at the zoo? Ever since Lorenzo de' Medici astounded
and entertained Florentines by keeping a giraffe in his menagerie in 1486,
Tuscans have kept collections of exotic animals to admire and educate. The zoo
in Pistoia was …
Families + Kids
When the frosting hits the fan
Bilingual/Bicultural
Perhaps it's some kind of maternal sacrilege, but I must confess a loathing for birthday parties, which, here in Italy, tend to be of epic length, demanding the ferocious stamina of a gladiator fighting off a pride of peckish lions. They …
Families + Kids
Rolling on the river
See Florence from the bottom up
Simone Ciabatti is a guide, a businessman and a proud Florentine who wants to share his city with others-and to do it in the most inventive way possible. For years, Simone has run his company, Accord Solutions, with an eye toward …
Families + Kids
Hot child in the summertime
Eight ways to keep your cool in Florence
There is no way to sugarcoat this: Staying in the city with bambini during the scorching summer months of July and August ain't easy. It's hot. School's out. Even summer camp goes on vacation. Your friends and neighbors are at the …
Families + Kids
Kids in two languages
Ask the cats to bark, please
My
mother-in-law likes to tell my children the Tuscan joke about the cat that
waited for the mouse to emerge from its hole in the wall. For three days, the
cat sat outside the mouse's home, waiting, waiting, waiting. When eventually
the cat barked ‘bow …
Families + Kids
A family affair
Tree Experience Parco Avventura di Vincigliata
I am about to give you the recipe for a perfect family
Saturday afternoon in Florence. Grab the car, saddle up the motorino or hop on the number 10 bus and get yourself to the Tree Experience
Parco Avventura di Vincigliata in Fiesole …
Families + Kids
Polyglots
Part II: raising bicultural children
Years
ago, when I first started my family here in Florence, my two-year-old daughter
rode to school on a motorbike. To the ‘manner' born, she would pull on her tiny
yellow helmet and her bright red baby sunglasses and climb up on her babbo's
Vespa.
As
her …
Families + Kids
Ludotechiamo
Raise your hand if you are bone-tired of winter. If you cannot fathom another rainy Saturday inside your microscopic living room as your toddler does speed laps, pausing every now and again to paw at the front door and throw you …Families + Kids
Bilingual, bicultural
Raising polyglot tots
One of the interesting aspects of bilingualism in our children is how my daughter at five years old could already work out the cultural beverage preferences of our guests. At four she seemed to know instinctively who spoke English and who …
Families + Kids
Sick kids
Musings on 'bambini malati'
by Dan Woodford
One morning last spring at the Esselunga's café in Florence I had met an Englishman and his wife having the coffee we all need before fighting our way down the aisles. They were sitting outside, in part to avoid the noise …
Families + Kids
Are you KIDding? A day at the park
Exploring via Faentina's Area Pettini
After having spent the majority of the last decade living in the center of Florence, I became one of ‘those people' who high-tailed it to the outskirts as soon as baby came along. Amidst romantic notions of ambling through the Santo …
Families + Kids
A Florentine bambino
How to give birth in the city
by Suzi Jenkins
Tuscany undoubtedly has one of the highest-quality maternal healthcare programs in Italy, possibly one of the best in the world. Hard to believe? Read on.
Once you know you're pregnant, there is, of course, the inevitable red tape to confront. First and …
Families + Kids
Brunelleschi and his dome
by Sabine Eiche
This poem is dedicated to my young Florentine friends Choppy and Giovanni.
Florentines had civic pride, Something that they didn't hide.Building churches was the rage,Even if it took an age.Dignitaries riding throughNoticed there was lots to do.There's Saint Mary of the Flower,Crouched …
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Wednesday, May 22, 2013