Travel guides and cell phones?

Marie, I sent you a private message regarding your cell phone question. As for tour guides, I've reserved several guides for the Amalfi/Sorrento/Pompeii portion of our trip this year. I am using Francisco Marrapese (www.francescomarrapese.com) for our day of sightseeing along the Amalfi Coast. The reviews of him on Trip Advisor are all excellent and his communication via e-mail was very professional and prompt. As for Pompeii, we have reserved a day with Sasha Bianco (the tour guide) and his brother who is the driver. They will pick us up from our hotel in Sorrento and take us to Herculaneum & Pompeii and stop for lunch in between. They will customize the tour to your tastes. Every time I e-mailed Sasha, I received a fast response and again, the reviews on Trip Advisor are very favorable. I also looked at Mondo Guides and was impressed with them as well. When you start researching guides, you will see there are many choices. As for Rome, I would take advantage of a group tour as they're much less expensive than private drivers/guides. We used Presto Tours for our tour of the Vatican and were very pleased with them. For our tour of Palatine Hill, the Forum and Colosseum, we used Through Eternity and were again extremely pleased with them. Maybe we'll bump into you in Sorrento as we'll also be there in early September! Have a wonderful time in Italy.

Thank you so much for this valuable information. It will certainly be something we will look into. Since there are six of us I feel that we will be a bit more secure with a "native" who will guide us to the right places..mb

Marie, I forgot to give you the web site address for Sasha Bianco. It's www.tourspompei.com

Regarding cell phones, check with your US carrier. Verizon has a loner program that I used a couple of times and it worked great. Don't know what other carriers might offer. And for walking tours, you might check Context Travel. I know they have operations in Rome, Venice, and Naples, and I've had great luck taking multiple tours in several cities.

Thank you very much for the information, I will check this out. mb

Hi Marie, We just booked private tours since we are a family of five and it is less expensive than joining a group tour. We booked two private days with through eternity tours in Rome for the Vatican, collosseum, forum and Appian way. We booked Pina Esposito on Pompeii and Naples for an 8 hour day with driver. Raffaele montetti will be our driver for a full day on the a Amalfi coast. All guides have been recommended by RS?
Happy travels.

@Michelle, "We booked Pina Esposito on Pompeii and Naples for an 8 hour day with driver" Pina is an outstanding Guide, and I'm sure you'll have a very interesting and memorable day. As I recall, the Monetti's are the drivers that Rick uses when he's in that area, so I'm sure they will also be excellent. Happy travels!

Wow,there are so many options..thank you so much. We wete also warned that many Italian drivers use their cell phones while driving, that won't be acceptable for us..

As for cellphones, check out EuroBuzz.com. For $29 plus $10 shipping they send you a cellphone, European SIM card, charger and adapter. You are issued a British number that is yours alone to keep. Rates on calls are stated on there website, .79 cents a min, and texts are free. It is a basic cell phone with no internet access but, you can use it on all of your trips to Europe. You are only charged for the calls you make and there is no monthly fee.

Thank you, so much for this information. My husband is convinced that we can buy phones in Europe and get the sim card there more efficiently and with more cost savings.. What do you think?

If you have an unlocked cel phone, just buy a SIM card there for about 20-30 Euro, will include about 5 minutes. Then you have an Italian number and pay Italian rates of around 0.10 eu/min. Add minutes as you need them.

Thank you, but I guess my age is showing...what is an unlocked phone?.