Rome tour guides

Context Rome

We used Angel tours and really like them BUT as with most of these types of tours, it is almost totally dependent on the tour guide. Are you interested in a private tour guide?

We used Walks of Italy for both.

Though I haven't used any myself recently, I've been hearing great things about Walks of Italy as well, enough to make me interested in using them in the future when I take guests on touristy adventures. I have yet to use them personally. They have an intimidating number of positive Trip Advisor reviews, enough to make me feel people must be on to something!

Here's a link: https://www.walksofitaly.com/

Personally I've always liked just walking these monuments/museums with a guidebook and listening to other tours going on around me (you'll hear SO much just in passing), and you can always rent an audioguide or bring one you've downloaded/bought/copied, but it depends on your preferences.

Do you have younger children accompanying you? If so, Pinocchio Tours.

I have two,

Sara Magister (https://contexttravel.com/about-us/our-docents)
Federica D'Orazio (http://www.touristinrome.com/)

I have used both and they are both wonderful, and both Romans.

We just got back from our trip and used Walks of Italy for the Colosseum, Forum and Palatine Hill and then did the Pristine Sistine for the Vatican/St Peters and I can't recommend them enough, we loved both of our tours and the guides Both these places are huge with a lot of ground to be covered in a short period of time, so the pace got fast at some points. We learned just enough to whet our appetites to start doing some more research on Rome.

Use the official sites for the best prices and great guides.

http://www.coopculture.it/en/the-colosseum.cfm

and

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

all tours and tickets allow you to bypass the lines and the guides are highly trained in these areas. They also cost much less than the private tour companies.

Donna

How large are the official Vatican tour groups? Is it worth paying double the price for a group of 20?

I believe they go up to 25 but I've never been on one that had more than 16. It really depends on the time of year you're traveling. To me it's not worth it because even with a larger group you wear the headsets so you can clearly hear the guide without needing to be right next to them. You can ask questions if you have them and they will happily answer for you.

Donna

Just got back from Rome and for the second time we use Stephania Cinotti. She is VERY good and knows her stuff. Would recommend her highly. Here is her email: stefania.cinotti@gmail.com

John Angiulo
Seattle

We used Through Eternity for both last month and couldn't have been more pleased. They were the 5+ hour tours - the Colosseum tour was lead by an archaeologist and the Vatican tour by a college professor with a doctoral degree in art history. Both were incredible and the groups were eight and seven people respectively. We could not relate to large groups - too hard to stay together and too hard to ask questions. We also did the early entry, but so did many, many groups. The Vatican was still crowded!