How to improve holidays with children

Posh establishments across Europe are pul-ling out all the stops to provide newfangled ways to keep pint-sized guests entertained. There's a lot more to five-star treatment for tots than mini-bathrobes and high teas.

Take the Regent Berlin (00 49 30 20 338; regenthotels.com), which runs "etiquette classes" for its younger guests. Your offspring will discover all the rules of dinner-party decorum, taking lessons in impeccable behaviour and the art of polite conversation.

Then there's the Grecotel Cape Sounio (00 30 22 92 06 9700; grecotel. com), outside Athens, which offers the Young Ambassadors of the Environment programme. Your tiddlers can immerse themselves in the joys of the underwater world, snorkelling, making art out of beach junk and learning how to protect the environment.

But you can't beat the Cavalieri Hilton in Rome (00 39 06 35 091; cavalieri-hilton.it), which has more classes than you can shake a stick at. There are pizza-making assignments, bartending tutorials and the latest addition: gladiator lessons.