Private Tour Guide in Italy
 

We used the Limo-in-Rome last Nov. Claudio wasn't available so we went with one of her partner (?) to Tuscany. I honestly can not recommand his service. He drove us from places to places OK but he could not provide us with what we expected of private tour guide i.e. history ,local knowledge and etc.
If you are going to use this company, make sure you ask for Claudio specifically as everyone seems to like her.

I think you got all the service that Claudio's partner was able to give you.

I returned from a Meditteranean Cruise two months ago and did Naples, Rome and Florence and Pisa.

I had a private Tour guide AND a private driver.

You have to be licensed to be a tour guide in Italy... a driver cannot be a tour guide.

He cannot take you into , say St. Peter's Basilica and start explaining everything to you because he is a driver ONLY and not a licensed tour guide.

I found this out before I went and booked both driver and tour guide in all three places.

For example, the driver picked us up at the cruise ship and drove us to Rome ,where our Tour Guide was waiting for us.!!

The same in Naples and Florence

Maybe this is what happened in your case.

The driver does not have to have a lot of knowledge BUT the Tour Guide has to write exams to test his knowledge...so I have been told.!!!

Hope this helps other going to Italy.

Hi jacketwatch !

Percy

We used claudio in Rome and he was amazing. He was a driver and had lived in Rome his entire life. He also arranged for a private guide for us for the Vatican, who was an archiologist/history major and she was also amazing. Would highly recommend Claudio. He does many tours for people coming off the cruises.

The Claudio I know... was a man..lol and he drove us to Orvieto, Multipulciano and Pienza ?? He was great!!

We absolutely loved Context Rome. We have since seen the guide who took us through Palentine Hill, Colliseum, Forum, etc. on the history channel. They are very professional experts in their field. We asked questions about "facts" we read in guide books, like Rick Steves, and they would correct us with exact facts and the basis for the mistakes written. We used them for the above tour, Vatican, ancient Rome (was not quite as good), Pompeii/Naples and Florence. By the way, we came back with 2 outstanding other things we did, Borgehese museum and the Capitoline Museum (Rick Steves recommendation. So glad we did it. We did a lot of research here on this board and our 2 week trip March 2006 was wonderful each day!