Italy Tour Guides

Check out Rome by Limo

Dario CastagnoWe don't take a lot of private tours; we usually do our own thing, but when you go to Tuscany, check this out. We took two of his tours, the Chianti tour and the "Behind the Scenes of the Palio" tour. Both were excellent, especially the Palio tour in Siena that includes a tour of the Caterpillar Contrada's clubhouse. These places are exclusive and private, but Dario is a member and can take you in. We are now honorary members and sport the Caterpillar's colorful silk scarfs.

Catacombs. Yes there are many cool things to see in Rome (colosseum, Trevi, Pantheon, Temple of Jupiter), but the catacombs will astound you and shake you.

Wife and I went to Rome/Tuscany a few years ago. Here are the tours we used:

Rome:

Walks of Italy - VIP Colosseum Underground/Forum/Palatine Hill

Walks of Italy - Pristine Sistine Vatican Tour

Vatican Scavi Tour - must be booked way ahead with Vatican office

Florence/Siena - booked a personal tour guide who we met in Florence, she rode with us to Siena and caught a train home. Booked through toursbylocals.com
We combined the Florence and Siena classic tours and our guide was Elisabetta.

All of these tours were top notch. We can't recommend them enough. If you are doing the Vatican- I STRONGLY recommend the Pristine Sistine. It is very early and we were in the chapel with maybe 30 other people. Later in the tour we made another quick pass through the chapel and it was stacked shoulder to shoulder.

We're trying to squeeze in Como or Lugano. We'll be in Milan 2.5 days and then flying out back to the states from Milan.

I've used Livia Galante in Rome multiple times. She's an archaeologist by training and she's a fantastic guide, very knowledgeable, speaks great english and just a super person. I think she may work for/with Context Travel intermittently. I've used Context in Rome, Naples, and a few other places and their guides are generally very good.