Kids Abroad! : Taking Your Children to Europe Doesn’t Have to Be the ‘Trip From Hell’ : Tips : Keeping Child and Parent Happy

Five-year-old Clayton Hulme went searching for the pool and the Jacuzzi as soon as he arrived in England.

“He hated the weather,” said his mother, Chris, who is English but lives with her family in Huntington Beach. “It took him awhile to adjust.”

Jeremy Smith says his trip to France two years ago “wasn’t that fun.” Jeremy, who is 14 now and lives in suburban Chicago, particularly hated that everywhere he went, all the fast-food he wanted, even pizza, was made with ham. He doesn’t like ham, he explained. He’s looking more forward to England this summer--to rollerblading there.

Four-year-old New Yorker Olivia Mascheroni told her mother she’s excited about going back to Italy because it’s “very pink.”

And Andy Watters, who is 12 and lives near San Francisco, liked Sweden because “there wasn’t smog anywhere.”

There’s no telling what kids will remember from a trip to Europe. They’re sure to get a lot out of it--but not necessarily what you have in mind when you decide to take them.

That’s not to say you can’t have fun with them. You can. So many kids are going, in fact, that they don’t even rate a second look on an overseas flight. There are several new books devoted to the subject--including a couple written expressly for children.

But don’t fantasize about showing your 7-year-old the wonders of the Louvre for four hours. It won’t happen. Neither will your 10-year-old want to spend all morning learning English history in Westminster Abbey. And forget about seeing much of any museum at all if you’ve got a toddler along--even if you’re in Florence.

The kids certainly won’t enjoy those fabulous four-hour meals you remember so fondly from your last trip. Nor will they want to change hotels every night or make it to six cities in 10 days.

So if you’re taking the kids, you might as well cut your itinerary in half now, suggests Valerie Deutsch, who co-wrote “Innocents Abroad: Traveling with Kids in Europe” with Laura Sutherland.

“You have to plan a different trip,” says Deutsch, who lives in Santa Cruz and has traveled extensively in Europe with her kids. “It’s a different way to experience Europe, but adults can get a lot out of it too.”

Think about staying put in one place, perhaps renting a condo or villa and exploring one region. Fairfield, N.J.-based Interhome (201-882-6864), for example, offers nearly 22,000 vacation rentals throughout Europe. Chez-Vous (415-331-2535), a smaller Mill Valley, Calif., agency, specializes in Paris rentals and homes in the French countryside.

Use the time to show your kids how different people live--from the way their food is packaged, to what they eat for breakfast, to the money they use. Let them meet children and play. They’ll manage--even without a common language. “We sort of communicated through gestures and it was OK,” said Andy Watters, of his time with Swedish kids.

“I understand Spain differently now,” said Barbara Goodman, who lives in Santa Ana and spent three weeks last Christmas traveling in Spain and Portugal with her husband and two young kids. This time, she said, rather than savoring the art or enjoying the shops, she learned to see Spain “as a place where families live.”

“We learned the name for every animal in Italian,” said Ruth Galen with a laugh. Galen lives in New York and took her toddler to Italy a couple of years ago. “We saw every ant, every doggie, every horsey all over Italy.

“It was great. Your kids bring you into the life there. You talk to mothers and shopkeepers and old men. You strike up conversations with people because of the kids.”

But before you rush out to get the passports or buy the tickets, remember one very important thing: Your kids are going to behave the same in Europe as they do in their own back yard. They’ll fight. They’ll finish eating in 10 minutes when you haven’t even gotten through your soup course. They’ll beg to spend every possible moment playing outside, preferably near a body of water.

“They won’t like sitting in the back of a car in Europe any more than they will going from Santa Barbara to L.A.,” warns Deborah Baratta, who runs Rascals in Paradise, a San Francisco-based travel agency that specializes in family trips. “They will want to do the same things they want to do at home.”

So bring lots of games and toys--card and board games are good bets for older kids. (They can play cards between courses in a restaurant, one mother advised, or while you tour the ancient cathedral.) And plan to spend at least some time every day at a park, beach or playground.

Consider whether you’ll need nap breaks or just cooling-out time in the afternoon. Make sure you’ve always got food and drinks on hand; shops may be closed in midafternoon--exactly when your kids are starving. Bring antibiotics, too. (Earaches can strike in tiny Spanish fishing villages, 50 miles from a doctor--much less one who speaks English.)

And don’t underestimate how much all of this will change your touring style. Compared to being on a trip without them, traveling with kids in Europe “is like being on a different planet,” says Deborah Baratta.

It’s not always a winning combination either, as Baratta and her husband learned last summer when they traveled with their then-6-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter. “My husband calls it the ‘trip from hell,’ ” she says. In Paris, for example, their children just wanted to watch the animal-sellers along the Seine. Finally, they were coaxed into Notre Dame, only to beg to leave in five minutes. But what child wouldn’t have opted for live animals, as opposed to dusty stained glass?

On the other hand, Baratta’s kids loved the weekong barge trip they took in Burgundy, where they could explore old villages at their own pace on bikes. “Just be careful how you plan,” she says. “And have realistic expectations.”

You’ll do fine.

Pack a Book for Europe

If I were planning a trip to Europe with my kids, Valerie Deutsch and Laura Sutherland’s “Innocents Abroad: Traveling with Kids in Europe” (Plume Books, $15.95) would be by my side. The country-by-country book offers help on everything from child-friendly places to stay, to translations of kid-friendly food, to listings of parks, zoos, museums and other places bound to pique even the most bored child’s interest--everything from toy museums in London to Rin Tin Tin’s grave in France. They even tell you about getting diapers and formula.

If you’re heading to London or Paris, try giving your kids “Kidding Around London” by Sarah Lovett or “Kidding Around Paris” by Rebecca Clay. Both are published by Santa Fe-based John Muir Publications, and retail for $9.95. With whimsical drawings, the books are designed to talk to older kids at their level. The London book, for example, has a chapter called “Odd and Creepy Things” that talks about Madame Tussaud’s wax museum, among other things.

Another new book is “Take Your Kids to Europe” by Cynthia Harriman (Mason-Grant Publications, $12.95). This book is filled with tips for families on a limited budget.

For overseas travel beyond Europe, Maureen Wheeler’s “Travel With Children” (Lonely Planet Publications, $10.95) offers constructive tips for traveling on a tight budget and dealing with Third World surprises.