HOTEL and Tour Guides recommendations: Rome and Paris

Check out Booking.com to find the kind of hotel, number of rooms, price, location, etc. All the information that you are seeking is there.

Patty,

Consider The Beehive in Rome. It is a hostel and a hotel. The website is The Beehive.

Sharon

Most sites will have their own guides. You can usually book online before going. It's hard to know without knowing which sites you plan on visiting.

Donna

Please excuse a stupid question. How can four women traveling together be considered four women traveling alone?. Does that mean that there are no men, or children going with you?

Hotel Britannique in Paris is very reasonable and within walking distance to Notre Dame, the Lourve, shopping restaurants! I've stayed there twice (once by myself) and loved it!

http://www.hotel-britannique.fr/en/

Try VRBO.com and get yourselves a nice apartment with at least two bedrooms. You will really enjoy having some space and save a lot of Euros.

Tour guides: Francesca Caruso (francescainroma@gmail.com) is legendary. Her colleague Sonia Tavoletta (soniatav@alice.it) is fabulous and less booked up in my experience. They will take your group privately, no other guests. Super experience. I recommend a 3-4 hour tour of ancient Rome with either of them. I also highly recommend Walks of Italy for their Pristine Sistine tour.

Hi Patty -
You've gotten some feedback on hotels (yes, knowing your budget is important to making recommendations) so I'll just comment on guides?

Having been to both cities - Rome multiple times - I really don't see the need for guides at all. Both are very easy to get around either on foot or a combo of foot and public transit, and with a good guidebook (no need to mention whose in THIS forum, eh?) you can sightsee on your own time, according to your own interests, and save some $$$. The only place I'd recommend a tour for is the Vatican Museums/San Pietro in Rome, and only so you can access the basilica directly from the museums as it saves some time and shoe leather.

Is there a specific reason why you're wanting guides? And if so, are there specific places of interest you wish to have those for? Paris and Rome are very different cities with a focus on different eras so if your group is, say, not into very old ruins/history but love art, then recommendations of where/how to spend your time will be different.

Both cities, by the way, are very safe so there's nothing at all for women traveling alone to worry about.

Slight housekeeping matter here - For best results you should have two separate posts. One on Rome in this Italy forum, and another on Paris on the France forum.

And you absolutely need to give more information. Most importantly, what does "in a budget" mean in terms of euros?

Good luck.

Don't forget Rick's "self-guided" Audio Tours to download before you go.

Patty-
I responded to a question by Jennifer about Vatican tours in which I recommended 3 Millennia Tours http://threemillennia.com. The Vatican tour was an excellent choice because you really have to have a guide for that place. Tony (owner) will take excellent care of you. You may be paired with a couple of other people, but the tour groups are always small - the biggest we have had was 6 people. That is the key really - small groups. I have seen lots of bigger groups (like 30 or even more) go through and they all look miserable - many of the spaces are too small to get everyone in, and the only ones who can hear and see the guide are the 3 or 4 people at the front of the group. Headsets help a little bit, but you still cant see anything. You would find yourself trying to see the item afterwards as the group trails away then you miss the next thing. Headsets are terribly impersonal anyway. With a small group, the guide will personalize the tour to what you are interested in, because you cant see it all in one day anyway - you don't have time and you don't have the energy/attention span to do that. I am generally an anti-tour-group tourist - we always design our own European travels anyway and go it completely on our own - but the Vatican is one of the few exceptions where you have to have a guide. Even if you only use it to skip the 3hour line. Also - be sure to check and honor the Vatican dress code. For the Basilica itself - it is free and you may find it better to go back on your own first thing in the morning because nobody is there then - you can literally just walk right in.
Regarding the rest of Rome - on one of our trips we asked Tony to put together a custom tour centered on Christian history. It was a fantastic day with a private driver and all of the things that we wanted to see. It wasn't cheap - but certainly worth it.
Having said that, with the exception of the Vatican, you can see everything on your own in Paris and Rome on your own - dive into doing some research and you will love the experience!

You don't "have" to have a guide for the Vatican museums. That's a myth put out there by tour companies. You can certainly visit the vatican museums on your own either with an audio guide or a good guide book. I would suggest booking the official vatican tour directly with the Vatican website.

http://biglietteriamusei.vatican.va/musei/tickets/do?weblang=en&do

Their tours are great and are budget friendly. You use headsets so you can clearly hear the guide without needing to be right next to them. Their groups are not so large that you cannot see what they're talking about. I'm not sure what Ed is referring to as this has not been my experience with the official tours. They have always done a very good job and answered any questions asked. They have never allowed part of their tour to be left behind. I don't think Ed has every actually taken an official tour or he would know that what he has posted isn't true.

Unless you're looking to take a guided tour of the museums I would suggest visiting them on your own either with an audio guide or a good guide book. You can book skip the line tickets at the official website and spend as much or as little time inside as you wish.

Donna

ed, welcome to the helpline.

I think it is important to stress facts. I have never seen a 3 hour line at the Musei Vaticani. I've seen some lines but I've never stood in one.

When I go it is just after lunch on a Thursday or Friday and I can walk in pretty easily. There always is a short security line that everybody has to go through, to protect the priceless objects.

I've never used a tour guide at the Vatican Museums. I can read a tour book fairly well and I find that the Michelin Green Book does a great job there, and the Rick Steves book does a decent job of showing what i want to see. I also find the free map handed out at the ticket office is very good.

Also, regarding the comment that you can just walk straight into St Peters Basilica. I've never seen that. Yes, there is no admission ticket. But everybody, and there are always of thousands of everybody, has to line up for the security inspection there too.

The only way to avoid that is to go to the Basilica after the Vatican Museums, through the tour exit behind the Sistine Chapel. Depending on the day it isn't always necessary to be on a tour to go that way.

I recommend the downloading the Rick Steves audio guides. They are free and really detailed.

Also for a really interesting and fun tour especially with a group of friends I HIGHly recommend Eating Italy. It's a walking (and eating) tour of the Trastevere neighborhood of Rome. Really a highlight of our trip. You do need to book in advance. We found it was the perfect thing to do on our first night since you are outside walking around so it helps you to combat the jet lag! Have a great time!