First Time Using a Private Local Guide and I’m Hooked!

Thanks for the suggestion. I will be in Milan for a week in mid-October; my first visit. I have Last Supper ticket, will be overnight on Isola Bella in Stresa for one night and plan a day in Cremona. I have my eye on the other major sites in Milan. Do you have an experience or guide you'd recommend? A site most folks skip that you enjoyed? DId you visit the near-by cemetery?

I’m glad you had a great experience but from your title, I was expecting to read terrible things when you said “I’ll never go back”. She sounds like a wonderful tour guide! The title totally misled me.

A good guide can make such a difference. I’ve had a number of great guides on my RS tours. Both main guides and local ones. I hope to use some private guides on future trips.

I’m glad you had such a great experience.

Well, I understood the title to mean “I tried this new way, and now I’ll never go back to the old way.” But yes, I can understand how it might mean the opposite too. Think positive, I guess!

I updated the title… totally missed how it could be mis-read. But I guess it was an attention grabber LOL.

Becky - I would check out Rick’s guidebook for guide suggestions. I only used Carla in Rome. As for what else to see in Milano, I would def recommend buying a lift ticket to the top of the Duomo. It’s spectacular up there! Super touristy thing to do is to get a Spritz at the Aperol Terrazza in Piazza del Duomo. It was pricey but the drink was the best spritz I had in Italy. I guess if you’re called the Aperol Terrazza, it better be good! In the Galleria, don’t forget to put your foot on the testicles of the Torino mosaic and spin around clockwise for good luck. You’ll feel silly, but everyone does it. For day trips from Milan, you can get to Lake Como with an hour train ride. Verona is a very pretty town as well. You can see Juliet’s balcony. Hope this helps. Happy Travels!

I love your new title and am still glad you had such a fantastic time with Carla. I might hire a private guide to tour the Vatican again and especially the Sistine Chapel.

Agree totally. We usually travel with another couple and have used private guides in Poland, Croatia, Amsterdam, Dublin, and Edinburgh. We’ll be in Spain and have private guides, from Rick’s book, for Madrid so far. Also, I have looked at group tours and many times they will say, if you would like a private tour, add xxx euros. Will be doing this in Granada.

Great post! I agree wholeheartedly that private guides are worth every cent.

Gaetano Manfredi for Pompeii, for example, Francesca Caruso and Sonia Tavoletta in Roma, Paris Muse personal guide for the Louvre: too may to name. Truly enhances the experience.

I agree with you.

I took my first sefl planned tour this past May. Prior to that I had been taking RS tours. One of the most enjoyable parts of the tour for me was the knowledgeable local guides. So I booked guides at all of the local sites that were important to us. Not a stinker in the bunch!
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We used local guides this year in Siena and Venice, and had great experiences in both places. We will definitely do it again.

Thanks for sharing this. I couldn’t agree more!
Our favorite guides:
Rome: Micaela Provancello
Florence: Giovanna Bossi Rosenfeld
Paris: Karen Reb Rudel
Athens: Salvador Levy
Budapest: Timea Tarjani
Cesky Krumlov: Karolina Kortusova
Prague: Yvonne Weisgrab, Pavel Batel, Jason (Living Prague)
Amsterdam: Naomi Koopmans
Some of these guides were recommended by relatives, friends, blogs, RS and this forum.
We have also taken small group walking tours over the years as well. We’ve never regretted hiring a tour guide. I have a favorite blog called sunsetsandrollercoasters.com that has a lot of tips for hiring a guide.

We are fans of touring with personal guides also, especially when visiting ancient ruins and large museums.

When traveling with a group, hiring a personal guide can actually be more economical than taking a group tour since typically you pay a personal guide by the hour no matter how many people in your group. Another advantage of touring with personal guides is that you can customize your tour to reflect your interests. For example, in Rome we added a visit to Basilica San Clemente when we toured the Colosseum, Forum and Palatine Hill with Marta Marsili. I have also found that in spending a few hours with a local guide I learn little interesting tidbits about what life is like in the country or city I'm visiting. I remember Marta (Italian born) saying that she needed to use subtitles to understand the local dialect when watching a popular Italian TV show about the mafia that was filmed in Naples!

Adding to Laurel's and Janis' lists:

Italy: Marta Marsili (Rome), Paul Costa (Florence), Roberto Becchi (Tuscany)

Croatia: Maja Benzon (Diocletian's Palace)

Spain: Margarita Ortiz de Landazuri (Alhambra)

Greece: Patty Staikou (Epidavros/Mycenae), Georgia Hiatsu (Delphi), Demetra-Context Tours (National Archeological Museum, Athens)

JudyB - I would definitely recommend hiring Carla for your Vatican experience. I’ve been 4 times and I learned a lot from her. Her description of the Sistine Chapel was wonderful and detailed, and her descriptions of the Michelangelo and Raphael dynamic (Michelangelo and everyone actually) was super interesting context which made me appreciate the chapel even more. You can tell her that Angela M recommended her to you. Have a wonderful visit!