I'm sorting out our details for a week in Rome and am trying to decide between buying the audio guide or the guided English tour. We're generally not a fan of guided tours due to the size of groups and our tendency to be distracted by art that isn't part of the tour. But, we're open to it for the Borghese Gallery.
Also, any tips on what time of day and day of the week is best? We arrive late Saturday March 23 and are leaving Saturday morning March 30.
Thoughts? Suggestions? Advice?
My friend from Rome booked us on a guided tour (in Italian) and we learned so much! The museum limits the number of patrons in the gallery at any one time (to 360, I believe) and the duration of your visit to 2 hours. So the day of the week and time of day are only important with respect to your ability to get tickets. It is highly recommended that you book these (well) in advance.
The guide made great use of that time, guiding us through highlights. With the time limit, you don't want to get too distracted!
Sorry to be a curmudgeon , but one hour watching this magnificent video essay about Bernini ( the sculptures in The Borghese are the highlight there ) will do more for you than any guided tour ever could . This is in four fifteen minute segments , from " The Power of Art " by the historian Simon Schama . The final moments bring the story to a climax in many ways , both literal and figurative . I hope you enjoy this , your visit will have a much deeper impact than you might imagine - https://youtu.be/Wet-VF2bDCA
I thought the audio guide for Borghese Gallery was excellent, one of the best I’ve experienced. With a guided tour, someone else is deciding what’s important for you to see. I’d rather consume that place at my own pace. They have your visit timed out pretty well too. You’d have to work hard to run out of time and miss something major. It’s not like the Louvre or something, you can cover everything inside within that timeframe and following the audio guide.
@Steven, I don't think you are a curmudgeon for suggesting the video! I've only watched 10 minutes of it and I'm learning a lot more about Bernini himself than we did on the tour. Though the presentation of the content is quite a contrast between our vivacious Italian tour guide (whose credentials I do not know) and art historian Sir Simon Shama's fabulous video essay.
There was also something for me, though, in the experience of an in-person Italian guide - in our case speaking Italian - bringing the material to life.
I think if you prepare ahead of time a guide isn't necessary. I recently went on the Best of Italy tour, so had guides in some of the museums and some i did on my own. I got one of those large art books from the library for each museum I was going to visit OR found a website that listed all of the pieces and gave a history. I was really looking forward to the Borghese Gallery and it did not disappoint. It was at the end of my trip and I did enjoy going at my own pace. I don't really think you can go wrong as long as you are engaged with the art in your way. For me, I need to have historical context.
I will definitely check out the video mention above.
I enjoy a guided tour with a local guide someone who lives and works in the city and loves its culture. A few times in my life I tried audio downloads which I did like but having a person conveying the history and stories of the places for me is a nice personal choice which I enjoy
I did the guided tour last year and thought it was well worth it. They give you a headset so you can hear the guide and move about as you wish. The crowds in the Borghese, besides the your tour, are milling about so you won;t escape that. The museum is unbelievable, it was my favorite out of two weeks of travel.
My family, friends, and I took the guided tour (from the Borghese itself in English). For a modest fee, the tour was excellent. The right balance of art, history, and culture (as our guide worked one of the charity events the evening before and we got some good insight on entertaining). For us this worked out as my travel companions have no patience for audio guides and it let me off the hook of having to be the tour guide. I would definitely take the tour again.
