We're planning on RS app audio tours but are concerned about traffic noise when on streets. I don't want my ears ringing from high volume to hear over the traffic. Would we be smarter to forego the audio and just use the RS book? (The drawback to that is spending more time looking down reading.)
Also how do guides make themselves heard over the traffic? Once we took a guided tour of London and had a lot of trouble hearing the guide.
Thanks.
A lot of the ground covered on his Rome walks is in the pedestrianized zones
Not much traffic noise there
Jim, the guides for some group tours use headsets so they can speak at normal levels and everyone can hear them. Same for many museums tours; in fact, some attractions mandate the use of these devices for groups over a certain size to cut down on noise level.
Whether your particular outdoor walking tour will use these depends on the tour. You might ask them the question if it's not clearly stated in the booking info?
Jim, do you have ear buds for your device? Use those. The limiting factor would be if there are more than one of you - each person needs their own device and earbuds.
Thanks for the replies. In London, admittedly several years ago, headsets weren't an option.
In regard to earbuds: yes, we've got them, both wired and bluetooth. Unfortunately the bluetooth aren't a fully reliable connection -- I don't know if it's our smartphones or the headsets, but it cuts out intermittently. So we're figuring on wired earbuds. We'll either have to use separate phones, synced as well as possible, or share a phone using a splitter for the two headsets. That means we'd be "wired" together which could pose a challenge. We tried walking around at home with both sets in a splitter and it works fine -- the cords are long enough to be feasible. However it could be different on the street, with people perhaps trying to walk between us.
Jim, DH and I did exactly as you described with a splitter on our last visit to London and Paris. We just walked arm in arm and kept to one side of the sidewalk. Worked ok in the museums, too
Jim, DH and I did exactly as you described with a splitter on our last visit to London and Paris. We just walked arm in arm and kept to one side of the sidewalk. Worked ok in the museums, too
Great, that'll be our plan.
I recall an earlier post about difficulty hearing the audio tours when out on the street--not necessarily in Rome, but that's a busy, noisy city. One suggestion was to listen to the tours in advance so you're somewhat familiar with the content. That sounded like a good idea to me, though I confess to not having tried it.
I'm not sure how well splitter use will work in Rome, even walking arm-in-arm. A lot of sidewalks were really crowded even in Feb/Mar this year. In some areas the sidewalks can be too narrow for two people to walk side-by-side, and there's sometimes broken pavement that needs to be avoided. Not to mention motorized scooters.
My wife is small -- maybe I'll carry her on my shoulders. :-)
Seriously, occasional interruptions are expected. I just wouldn't want a situation where the headphones get ripped off our head by an accidental contact.
We'll have to play it by ear. (Pun intended)
