Tour companies to use for Rome, Florence and Venice

We used Walks of Italy in Venice and Rome. We enjoyed the Pristine Sistine tour in the AM before the crowds! We also took their VIP Colosseum Underground tour. Both were excellent! In Venice we took their St Mark's and Doge's Palace tour. My favorite part of the tour was seeing the Horses of St. Mark's up close. They were absolutely amazing! We also went out on the terrace above St. Mark's Square. I highly recommend the tours.

Like Pfresh, we also used Walks of Italy for the Colosseum (Combo tour Colosseum, Palatine Hill and the Forum) and we did the early morning Pristine Sistine with them. Small groups with knowledgeable guides. I think this was the best money we spent and the best use of our limited time in Roma. We will be going to Rome again in May with another couple, they will be taking these same tours and we will do something else. I would book the tour about 3 months before you go. There is a Rick Steves discount that can be found on this site, I think you also get a discount if you book multiple tours. We also used them in Florence for the Walking tour that included the Uffizi.

Thank you for the recommendations and the hint to book 3 months in advance. I was looking at Walks of Italy and they seem to have the highest rating among traveller's. Thanks for the reminder to use Rick Steves discount, that will help.

I can't recommend enough the guys at Joy of Rome for the Vatican. For the underground bit at the Colosseum you might want to go with bigger tour companies, like Walks of Italy, Dark Rome or maybe Through Eternity.

We also did 3 tours with Walks of Italy and it was very good. One tour was horrible and we wrote them and they refunded us some of our money. Be prepared to walk for hours. But we highly recommend them as well.

I always use Viator and have been very pleased with their service.

For the Vatican Museum, you may want to do their Friday evening tour and have the Museum almost to yourselves.

https://biglietteriamusei.vatican.va/musei/tickets/do?do

Barbara- Viator is a booking agency, they don't actually operate any tours but they act as a middle man to book a tour with the tour company for you. With that being said, you really can't do any research on the tour company. I have read some good reviews about Viator, but I prefer to book with the actual tour company.

I used 'Walks INSIDE ROME' ( different company from listed above) a lovely small company with expert guides for the Vatican and Colosseum. They have a fun food tour as well as the golfcart tours in Rome. Highly rated. http://www.walksinsiderome.com/
Also, check into Katie Parla's Rome restaurant suggestions- we dined at 3 different ones in August and very pleased with each.

I've used European Odyssey several times in Rome for the past seven years. I can recommend highly their knowledgeable and entertaining guides. This past May our group of travelers did the Colosseum Underground tour with EO, and we're lucky enough to have Rahul as our guide. I believe that European Odyssey offers tours in Firenze as well as Rome. Tours are value priced in my opinion.

We have used Walks of Italy many times and loved them all. Highly recommend, great guides, lots of walking but wonderful. Florence, Milan, Pristine Sistine, Pompeii/Amalfi. Also used Context, also excellent.

Hi,
We used the Roman Guy for both early entry into the Vatican and the Underground Colosseum Tour. Both were fantastic. Below is what I posted elsewhere on Rick Steves Forum for these tours.

For the Borghese Gallery, we meant to use Rick's pod cast but forgot our tablet in the hotel. We rented the Borghese self walking tour and it was really good.

For the Doge's Palace and St. Marks, we used Rick's pod casts and they were wonderful! I would highly recommend them and save the money.

For Florence, we used Rick's podcast for the Academia and it was right on target. The best thing at the Academia is David and the pod cast does a really good job explaining not only David but other items at the Academia. We then use Rick's podcast for the Florence walk. We did not to the Uffuzi.

Vatican Tour
We used the Roman Guy for two tours, the Vatican and the Colosseum. On the Vatican tour, we chose the Vatican Privileged Entrance Tour that got us into the Vatican early. I highly recommend this..discussed later. Our tour guide, Elaine, was wonderful! She was funny, knoweldgable, and very friendly. So for the tour, Roman Guy has a great headphone system so you are not trying to squeeze around your guide. Next, we went directly to the Sistene Chapel as soon as we got in. It was an unbelievable sensation standing in the middle of this wonderous church....chills ran through my body. At this early time in the Sistene Chapel, we had plenty of room to move around and look at all the fantastic art - Michaelangelo's ceiling, of course, and so much more. When we came back to the Sistene about 2.5 hours later, it was packed shoulder to shoulder and you could barely move. The fact that we could move around with the early entrance was worht the cost of the tour alone!

After the Sistene Chapel, we went through the Vatican Museum.....WOW is all I can say. The frescos, the art, the tapestries, maps that showed what the world was thought to look like in the early 1500s, Etruscan treasures,and so much more that was breathtaking and unbelievable. You can see all of this in books or on the intranet, but nothing but in person can do this justice.

Unfortunately, we were there the day after Mother Teresa as canonized and the Basilica was still closed. I will be back and will go to the Basilica.

Since the Basiclica was closed, Elaine (tour guide) took us into the Carriage Museum. This was a pleasant surprise and showed us many of the carriages and cars that the Popes have used.

Overall, a wonderful tour and an unbelievably fantastic tour guide.

Like others above, we have used Walks of Italy several times with great success. In Florence, their AM walking tour of Florence includes the David statue in the Academia. In the afternoon, they have a tour of the Uffizi, led by an art historian. You can do them on separate days, or do them both on the same day (separate tours and different leaders.). There is a two hour break in between 12-2PM. The AM ends and the PM begins in the Piazza della Signoria, so it's easy to get some lunch and meet up for the PM. We did the tours in one day because it was the day before a national holiday and the museums were closed the next day. While there is a lot of walking, of course, we did not find it strenuous. The guides were top-notch, and groups are no more than 15, with each person having their own headphones. We felt it was money well spent.