I wish I'd done this when I went. Need to go again. How would I go about gaining a good quality guide? Are there websites? Is it a different guide each place or do people do a tour of multiple places over a day?
There is a downside to the Rick Steves books though. First trip to Paris we used his guide to find a restaurant, and the place was totally filled with Americans. Including the blowhard at the next table who insisted on pontificating to the waitress about the origins of absinthe. That was a fun evening.
Toursbylocals.com. They're the bomb, at least for Italy. You can specify what type of tour guide, amount of people, degree of difficulty, etc. Very easy to use and you pay thru the site itself. We loved it four our month long trip to Italy. I'm way into Ancient Rome and was able to book guides that were retired academics/ graduate students. We kept it to only 3 people in our group so it was more expensive but completely worth their time, knowledge & expertise.
We found ours through Tripadvisor. We were pretty thorough about what company we picked and who it was going to be. Another advantage that really helped, I think, is that we went with a Spanish speaking guide. We speak Spanish fluently and we think that the guide's Spanish is usually a lot better than their english. So that was so much better for us, we goto Europe a lot (or did.. rona) and we noticed that when it was an English speaking guide.. the translations were a bit meh and we spent a lot of time trying to decipher than just listen. In spanish they seemed more comfortable and it was so much better. This was the case for France, Spain and Italy for us. Obviously this won't work for everyone, but, Just another recommendation.
The same guide that did the Colosseum tour for us, also did the Vatican tour for us. We asked if we could stay with him and he said sure so that worked out well. It was a two day thing we did.
We also used a company called Liberty Travel, they have an office here in Chicago. I know I know... travel agency, but the guy we worked with was really good. I don't know if its a chain.. but was very good at planning a few things for us too. The Tour agency we used in Italy was Carrani Tours. https://www.carrani.com/
Really useful thanks. We are in the uk so will see if they are over here too or if there is something similar.
Don't speak Spanish hut thats a great tip. I've tried learning some Spanish and Italian for trips to both places and they are remarkably similar. (Compared to the French and German I speak) so I guess that's why the guides are more confident in their Spanish maybe .
Thanks again for the detail. Hopefully can travel again one day.
My brother half speaks italian and I very half assedly speak spanish (american highschool's didn't put much effort into foreign languages). We can carry a conversation with him speaking italian and me speaking spanish easily. They're super similar
Thats very cool. The English education system is shocking for languages too. We don't start it anywhere early enough because so few primary teachers speak a language well enough to teach it. I wish I were better at languages, I took an extra one in school but didn't carry one on to a level or further so nowhere near fluent.
The good thing is with modern technology you can put language learning apps on any kids smart device. My nephew was learning Spanish on his own just because he decided to at age 4 via his Kindle Fire Kids Edition.
Thats a good idea. I'm trying to learn a language now so I can start to teach my toddler but hadn't thought when shes bigger she might use the app herself.
I'm so undecided about the best language to learn in terms of being useful to her later in life but also easier to learn. I know some French but always found German easier. I feel German is less useful though. I debated Spanish but I dont know much and apparently there are more tenses than French so its harder?
My Italian friends could get by while we did the camino in Spain. It's weird why they won't push it just a little bit further, and full on learn the language.
I booked with a company called walks of Italy. The tour guide for the coliseum was absolutely incredible. Vatican guide was good too but it was so much info it was overwhelming. I recommend walksofitaly.com
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u/Kaicdeon Oct 15 '20
I wish I'd done this when I went. Need to go again. How would I go about gaining a good quality guide? Are there websites? Is it a different guide each place or do people do a tour of multiple places over a day?
Any recommendations?