Visiting Rome in a couple weeks. Leaving the U.S. tomorrow, so would like to have some plans and reservations in place before I go.
I'm sure this question comes down to personal preference, but I'm not sure if I want to go on a tour or not. The tours sounds really interesting. At the same time, I like to wander on my own and I have a guidebook. Would appreciate any thoughts on the pros or cons or doing a tour or doing it on your own. Thanks.
We are not ones to go for tours either, but we did get an underground and third tier tour that was through the official Colosseum website. The price was way cheaper than other tours, we were able to skip lines, and it was a small group of about 12 people. Enjoy!
I am not a tour person either but booked a few for our next trip in Rome for August. Im just not willing to sit in long lines and wait for hours on end.
We prefer live guides simply because you can ask questions and get answers. Pod casts and guide books don't do that. And guide books tend to be limited in information since there is limit to how many words can be used. Most of guides are picked up through the local TI. The local TI is always our first stop. You can always return and wonder later but now you have a lot of good information so the wondering is far more interesting.
You are starting your planning a bit late so you probably could benefit by hiring guides which will afford you to skip many lines and maximize your time. You will also be more aware of what you are seeing having someone to point out and explain. Much of this can be accomplished on your own with some advanced preparation, I like to use Rick's self guided tours.
When touring the ruins outside of the Colosseum a guide would be most helpful as I found it a bit confusing.
Near the Colosseum is the church of St. Peter in Chains which is morbidly cool AND has Michelangelo's Moses, no guide needed.
The tours on the coop culture website all look filled/closed for the days I'm there. Is it possible to join those tours the day I go, or are they only by reservation? Thanks.
If you are looking at the underground/3rd ring tours, they sell out months ahead, pretty quick after they are released.
I prefer a tour for the sites that have lots of history, the forum and palatine hill are a lot of ruins, that if not explained look like just ruins, they really came to life with a guide. All of the tours we took ended with us inside the area allowing us to wonder around as we like afterwards. As others have mentioned, we booked our tour with a private company about 4 months before our trip. Plus hearing the passion in the guides voice and the extra stories really added to our experience. We only had one portion of a tour that was really boring, when we joined another group and their guide for about 20 min.
FYI-I used Walks of Italy and I just looked at their calendar and they have days that are sold out, but they have availability 7-11-14! I HIGHLY recommend them, you really get what you pay for with this company.
