Hodie

Good morning Fodorites! As mentioned on a previous thread I am planning a trip to Florence, Tuscany & Rome in early October and have four full days in Florence and five full days in Rome.

Hotels: I'm trying to get the hotels secured now and would appreciate your opinions. There are two of us, I'd like to stay under 200 EUR/night, with a decent breakfast and in an area that requires as minimal a need for public transportation as possible. Right now I'm leaning towards Hotel Casci for Florence, but I did notice it's not a non-smoking hotel. You can request a non-smoking room, but has anyone stayed recently and can you still smell smoke throughout the hotel? I honestly don't mind, but my companion is very sensitive to it. What about Hotel Europa? In Rome I'm thinking the Relais Teatro Argentina but can't find anything anywhere on it (was a Rick Steve's rec). Could also do Hotel Portoghesi or Hotel Due Torri but the Relais just seems (seems being the key word since I can't find anything) to have everything I want. Help?

Tour companies: I'd like to do a few guided tours as well (one of the things I've learned is that I enjoy sites much more when I know what I'm looking at). Has anyone used ArtViva tours or Walks Of Italy? ArtViva is a better price, but Walks of Italy has smaller groups. I know I want to use a guide/tour group for the Uffizi and Vatican at minimum. Also day trip to Tuscany (wine & hill town focus) which I'm looking at Hills & Roads for, as well as a day trip to Pompeii with Visit Pompeii (Giusseppe seems great). Has anyone had experiences with any of the above, suggestions for an alternative?

kybourbon

Personally, I don't like the location of the Relais Teatro Argentina. It's an extremely busy intersection with buses, trams and taxis. It would be an easy walk to many things, but you might want to consider somewhere with less traffic.

>>>as well as a day trip to Pompeii with Visit Pompeii (Giusseppe seems great).<<<

Guides inside Pompeii have to be licensed. I'm not familiar with Giuseppe. Are they a company out of Rome? Do they just take you and turn you over to a guide at Pompeii?

Hodie

Hi kybourbon-
Shoot, I did not think of that with the hotel. Are you familiar with Portoghesi or Due Torri?

Giuseppe is with Visit Pompeii. I believe he is out of Naples?

wanttogo

Hotel Due Torre has very small rooms but it is in a fantastic location. I think
That we had a balcony off our room.

Pat

Rostra

I only scrolled through the 1st page of the 65 reviews for the
Relais T.A. it seems the new windows keep out the street noise but there where 2 mentions of noise from the restaurant below and 1 about the neighbors (IME it's possibly from a courtyard where locals have apartments?).
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Rev...o.html#REVIEWS

DebitNM

We just did a tour using Hills and Roads. We were a bit disappointed - I had booked months ago, requesting Lucca do the tour. He said he would be our guide. I confirmed with him a couple of weeks out and all was good. I then sent him email with arrival/meeting times and did not get a reply. It took several days to hear from him, his website wasn't working and we were getting concerned. We finally heard from him 2 days before the scheduled tour and he said he was in NYC and couldn't do the tour. Someone else did the tour and he was ok, but he had a trainee with him and they spent a lot of time talking to each other in Italian.

For a tour of Amalfi coast, I highly recommend http://www.francescomarrapese.com. What an excellent tour! We didn't not include Pompeii as we were going the following day. We used a recommend tour guide, Sasha and actually talked to another associate of Francesco's - Vincenzo, who would be a great guide too.

KTtravel

We stayed at the Hotel Europa a few years ago and it was fine -- our room was spacious, clean and quiet. I have heard very good things about Hotel Casci which is across the street. Both would be very well located. You could always mail the hotels and ask them if they allow smoking. I did not notice any smoke odor in our room at the Europa but may not be as sensitive as your friend.

Hodie

Thank you all for the feedback, I can at least narrow it down to a shortlist now.

johnnyomalley

I've done a couple of tours with Walks of Italy in Roma and was very satisfied.

jamikins

We used www.enjoyrome.com and thought their tours were really good.

denisea

We did two tours with Walks of Italy and were very pleased. We did the Vatican Museums and Sistine chapel and Colisseum with the top tier and Underground.

We used Daniella Hunt as a private guide to Tivoli and Elizabeth Minchilli for a food tour in Campo dei Fiori. Both were excellent.