Guide in Rome

You can't do better than Francesca as a tour guide in Rome. Her contact info is in Rick's Rome book. I highly recommend her. Her passion and insight makes Rome come alive.

I don't have any guide recommendations but you might want to consider some downloadable guides that you can take with you. You donwload them to an ipod or any other MP3 player and have them when you want them. This way you can go at your own pace, stop when you want and restart when you want. My husband and I did this on our first trip to Venice and loved the tours of the Dorsoduro area. We stopped in the middle of the tour for lunch and then finished the tour going at our own pace. The company I use is pocketvox.com. they have wonderful tours of the forum and the city. They also have tours of certain sites like the Borghese gallery, Santa Maria Maggiore and St. Peter's square and basilica. It's just something you might want to consider. Donna

Francesca Caruso, [email protected]. Tell her your needs. She will customize to your needs, and it will be only the three of you: no crowd, no one elses's needs to consider.

I have to suggest another Francesca - del Fattore - I recently recommended her to friends from California - this was there comment after the trip: "Francesca was wonderful. She was the right choice. She gave us a much deeper understanding of everything." Francesca del Fattore [email protected]

Daniel, I would also highly recommend Francesca Caruso. She's an outstanding Guide and I'm sure she would be able to tailor a tour to whatever amount of walking you're able to tolerate. Happy travels!

Ditto what everyone else has said about Francesa. She is absolutely incredible and the VERY BEST local guide we have had anywhere on any of our travels. She literally made Rome come alive. Seems I remember she was raised in Italy, but I think I remember her mother was from the US. Her English is perfect, she is easy to understand, and she has a cute subtle, delightful wit. We were on Rick's "Heart of Italy" tour when we had the pleasure having her guide us through the ancient parts of Rome. Now, several years later, when we talk about Rome, we always tell everyone that we "had the most incredible guide." EVERYONE on our trip adored her. I can still hear her explaining that "Rome is a lasagna" -- layers and layers of civilizations in the ruins. You will part with a greater understanding of the history and how the excavations have "only just begun." She pointed to one large area of ruins and explained that the area used to be a parking lot 14 years ago when she first started guiding -- makes one realize that all roads, buildings, parking lots cover so much more!!! Just explain to her "how" you would like to tour -- the shorter time frames with less walking.

Several years ago my 81 year old mother-in-law, her 76 year old friend, and I travelled together to Italy. I knew they would find Rome challenging and wouldn't be able to keep up with a regular tour group. We arranged for private tours through Context Travel. The tours are led by scholars and specialists and are designed for "intellectually curious travelers". We
had three tours with them all excellent and customized just for us. www.contexttravel.com.

We booked a tour with Context Rome and our tour guide was Cecelia, a native of Rome. She was excellent and the tour (about 4 hrs) was well worth the cost-maybe $60 pp but this was about five years ago. Our prior visit to the Forum, Coliseum, etc was in a state of total jet lag so taking the tour was really like seeing (and understanding) these amazing areas of Rome for the first time.