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Tour with English-speaking docent from Borghese Gallery

Tour with English-speaking docent from Borghese Gallery

Old Jan 11th, 2014, 06:38 AM
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Tour with English-speaking docent from Borghese Gallery

We visited the Borghese Gallery in 2002 and we had a wonderful tour led by an English speaking docent from the Borghese Gallery. We will be in Rome in June of 2014 and are planning to visit the Borghese Gallery again. We would like to book a tour with a docent from the Gallery but I can't seem to find a way to do that online. A couple of threads I've found say you can only book entry tickets in advance and you have to sign up for the docent led tour once you are there. Is that the case or am I just missing something? I'm using the link below.

http://www.tosc.it/tickets.htm?affil...78&language=en
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Old Jan 11th, 2014, 06:45 AM
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This link shows a telephone number to call for the guided tour in English.

http://www.galleriaborghese.it/borghese/en/einfo.htm
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Old Jan 11th, 2014, 07:00 AM
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Thanks ellenem. I'll try calling on Monday.
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Old Jan 11th, 2014, 07:17 AM
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The Borghese web site clearly states that you cannot book the docent-led tours in advance. You sign up when you get to the museum.

"Guided tours (you cannot reserve the guided tours for singles)"
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Old Jan 11th, 2014, 07:59 AM
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You might try to book a tour with an outside service, such as Context Travel, which provides expert docents for tours of many things in Rome. They will determine which guide would be more suitable for you, based on your interests and background. I believe their minimum time for a tour is three hours, and you can only remain inside the Gallery for two hours, but I'm sure they could fill another hour outside the gallery, on the history of the Villa, the Borghese family, and the art gallery.
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Old Jan 12th, 2014, 05:13 AM
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>>>Thanks ellenem. I'll try calling on Monday.
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Old Jan 14th, 2014, 05:02 AM
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I was hoping it would work like it did for The Last Supper in Milan. You could first buy the entrance tickets online then there was a separate link to buy the English speaking tour. But as adrienne pointed out - no such luck at the Borghese. I called this morning (thanks kybourbon - I forgot they were closed on Monday) and they indeed confirmed that because we have less than ten in our group that I must wait until we are there to sign up for the English speaking tour.

bvlenci - I checked in to various outside tour companies but the cost is significantly higher than a Borghese docent - and we were very happy with our Borghese docent in 2002.

adrienne - I see you had posted on another thread that once we are inside we would need to go to where the docents stand and there is a maximum number they will take so we should try to get there ASAP. If we have tickets for 11 AM - do you know about how early we would be able to get inside to try to sign up for the tour? I can't remember how it worked in 2002.
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Old Jan 14th, 2014, 05:09 AM
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You should be at the museum no later than 10:30 to check your belongs. As I remember, the docents don't start selling tickets much before the hour but you can check once you get there. Have one person stand in the check line and the other go to where the audio guides are and ask about the tours. They'll tell you when they start selling tickets.
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Old Jan 14th, 2014, 06:01 AM
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Thanks adrienne. That should be a good day for us in Rome. The Borghese Gallery and Gardens first, then a nice long lunch before checking out a few of the Roman Holiday sites in the afternoon and finally watching Italy vs Costa Rica in the World Cup at some local bar that evening. Can't wait!
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Old Jun 27th, 2014, 04:52 PM
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Back from our trip and our visit to the Borghese Gallery was wonderful. We arrived a little after 10:30 and found we had to stand in the audio guide line to sign up and pay for a guided tour in English.

We were very happy with our docent - very interesting commentary and we felt she did a good job of picking what to talk about. Because they limit the number of people it was blissfully uncrowded (at times our group of 8 was alone in some of the rooms). One of our favorite museums anywhere. It reminds me of the Orangerie Museum in Paris, not large but exquisite art and a very enjoyable experience.
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