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Personal Tour Guides in Rome

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My wife and I visited Rome back in 2002 with 2 other friends. We retained the services of several tour guides from a company recommended in the Rick Steeves Rome Guide Book at that time.

We booked 4 different individualized guides to take the 4 of us through the Vatican Museum, the Romans Forum, Mediaeval Rome and the Grotto palace. My interest was art history and we were provided with a terrific guide who had advanced degrees in art history and she took us on a fascinating tour of the Vatican Museum. I had visited the Vatican at least 4 times previously but that expert tour guide and my ability to ask many questions gave me a much better understanding of many famous works of art that I had viewed previously.

My recollection is that the tour guides were all American graduate students doing advanced degrees in Rome.

Each member of our group was able to suggest a time period or subject matter of particular interest to each of us and the guides provided were experts in those areas and able to answer all of our questions both dumb and less dumb.

We all learned a great deal and we all felt that these expert guides and their tours tailored to our interests greatly enhanced our visit to Rome on that occasion.

A good friend of mine is taking a special 6th birthday trip to Rome next month and would like to set up similar tours for he and his wife.

The problem is that I can't remember the name of the tour company that we used in 2002 which was recommended by the Steeves guide book.
I would be grateful if you could provide me with the name and contact of that tour guide company if it is still in business or recommend some similar organization if that company no longer exists or is no longer recommended.

Thank you for your assistance in the matter.

Regards,
Bob Dechert
BTW, I loaned my 2002 Steeves Rome guide to a friend years ago and they left it somewhere. I have a book shelf of Steeves guides for other places and continue to use them. The Internet is great but I still like to have that book in hand when visiting places that are new to me.

Posted by
2 posts

Thank you for your reply. I have already told him to buy the book. He will. Thank you for your suggestion. I will pass it on to him.

Posted by
261 posts

In 2002, Tom Rankin's Scala Reale was the leader in high-quality docent tours. He sold the company to Context Rome, and Tom's expert guidance is now available through them. Tom was recently interviewed on the PBS NewsHour in a piece on water in Rome. Context Rome employs some of the most accomplished docents in the business. I can't speak to Rick's 2002 guidebook, but I do know that Rick knows Tom Rankin and company.

Posted by
2124 posts

You know, maybe I'm the outlier here but I think if any town can be done without a tour guide, it would be Rome. Use the RS Rome book as a rough guide, get a bus pass and a laminated bus schematic at Termini station, and just GO. Getting lost is a good thing in Roma.

So many discoveries that aren't even on Rick's radar, including the area northeast of Porta Pia on Nomentana where you encounter 2nd and 3rd century St. Agnes & St. Constantia churches, and then Villa Torlonia, which contains Mussolini's wartime mansion. Had I had a month, I could provide dozens of examples just like these.

To each his/her own, but I'll be back to savor more of this place, on my terms and not some tour guide's.

Posted by
907 posts

We used Sara Magister for basically the same thing you did. We loved her. She is a Roman. You can find her on Google

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