The gelato, three scoops, stracciatella, fragola, and pistacchio di Bronte, begins to melt the moment it leaves the counter, and your six-year-old is wearing more of it than she is eating. The Italian grandmother at the next table catches your eye and smiles with the expression of someone who has seen a thousand children covered in gelato and considers it entirely normal. In Italy, children are not an inconvenience to be managed. They are part of the texture of daily life, and the country, chaotic, affectionate, forgiving, is one of the best family destinations in Europe.

Italy With Children: Three Cities That Get It Right

Rome, Where History Is a Playground: The Colosseum at 9am (book the family tour, which includes the underground chambers, the hypogeum, the gladiator’s entrance, the wild animal cages, and a guide who knows exactly how to hold a child’s attention while describing the engineering of the arena floor, which was covered in sand to absorb blood). The Forum afterwards (shorter attention span: pick three things, the Temple of Saturn, the House of the Vestal Virgins, the Arch of Titus, and move on to gelato before the complaints start).

The Explora Children’s Museum (near Piazza del Popolo, €8, book ahead) is a hands-on discovery centre where children can play at being a firefighter, a chef, or a scientist in a space designed entirely for them. The Villa Borghese gardens (free, the largest public park in central Rome) have a boating lake, a puppet theatre, and a miniature train that loops through the pine trees. Rent a pedal cart (€8 for 30 minutes) and let the children burn off energy while you drink a coffee on a bench and watch the Roman light filter through the umbrella pines. The Spanish Steps are not steps to a child. They are a mountain. Climbing them, all 135, is an activity in itself, and the view from the top, across the rooftops of Rome, is the reward.

Venice, A City Without Cars, Miraculously Built for Children: Venice is one of the most child-friendly cities in the world for a reason that is obvious once you arrive: no traffic. The streets are water. The vaporetto (water bus, a 75-minute journey on the Grand Canal costs €9.50, children under 6 free, the best-value sightseeing tour in Europe) is a floating playground. The pigeons in St Mark’s Square are a tourist cliché and, to a child, the single greatest wildlife experience of the holiday, buying a bag of corn for €1 and letting the pigeons land on outstretched arms has not lost its appeal since the Victorians invented the practice.

The Museo di Storia Naturale (Natural History Museum, Fondaco dei Turchi, €8) has a dinosaur skeleton and, more importantly for the under-10s, an aquarium room full of Adriatic fish that provides 45 minutes of hypnotised faces pressed against glass. The Peggy Guggenheim Collection (€17 adults, children free) allows children to see a Picasso and then run outside into the sculpture garden, the combination of world-class modern art and the freedom to be loud in the courtyard is a rare thing and a welcome one. The gelato at Gelateria Nico (Zattere, 2 km from St Mark’s, worth the walk) is served with a view of the Giudecca Canal where container ships, water taxis, and gondolas perform an improbably graceful ballet of maritime traffic. The gianduiotto, a slab of chocolate-hazelnut gelato served with whipped cream, is a Venetian institution.

Florence, The Renaissance, but Make It Kid-Sized: The Palazzo Vecchio (the town hall, €12.50 adults, children under 18 free) runs “Family Tours” that take children through secret passages, hidden doors, and the attic where the Medici kept their treasures, the tour ends on the battlements with a view of the Duomo that makes even the most screen-addicted teenager look up from their phone. Climbing the Duomo (463 steps, no lift, €20, book 2-3 weeks ahead) is an endurance test. The reward, standing inside Brunelleschi’s dome, the fresco of the Last Judgment (Giorgio Vasari and Federico Zuccari, completed 1579) so close you can see the brushstrokes, and then the view from the lantern at the top, the entire city of Florence spread out below in terracotta and marble, is the kind of thing that creates memories lasting decades. The children will complain on the stairs. They will thank you at the top. Probably.

The Museo Galileo (Piazza dei Giudici, €10 adults, children under 6 free) is a science museum with telescopes, globes, and a collection of scientific instruments that Galileo himself used, including the lens through which he discovered the moons of Jupiter in 1610. The interactive displays are genuinely engaging; the “hands-on” section on the upper floor lets children (and adults) experiment with pulleys, levers, and optical illusions. The Boboli Gardens (behind the Pitti Palace, €10) are the outdoor counterbalance to the museum trail, 45 acres of formal gardens, fountains, and a grotto decorated with fake stalactites and sculpted animals that look, to a child, like Narnia made real. The view of Florence from the top of the gardens is the family photograph you will frame.

Italian Family Survival Guide

Italians eat dinner late (8pm is early), but most restaurants will serve children earlier if you ask nicely. The pizza is the universal family fallback, it is better than any pizza you have ever eaten, it costs €6-10, and it arrives in 8 minutes. Italian playgrounds are excellent, well-maintained, shaded in summer, and found in every neighbourhood. The drinking fountains (nasone, “big nose” in Roman dialect) run continuously with cold, clean water from the aqueducts; bring a refillable bottle. The gelato rule, one scoop per day, minimum, non-negotiable, is the secret to family harmony in Italy. Pick a different flavour every time. The pistachio (pistacchio) will change your life.