dmiclat

We are planning to go to Rome, Vatican City, and Florence in late Sept/early Oct for 2 weeks and are seeking recommendations for a official/certified private tour guides for Rome and Vatican City. These guides should be able to provide us with expedited entry/access to all major sites.

Please let us know your recommendations and testimonials and how we can contact such a tour guide.

Thank you!

deedeedee

For Florence, try Tuscan Sunshine Tours. We used them last year & were
very happy. Spent a full day touring Tuscany & really enjoyed it.

kybourbon

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...aster-list.cfm

LauraLF

We recently used Walks of Italy for tours of colosseum and Forum and also for Vatican . You by pass completely any lines(except for security of course) and they have smaller group sizes, ours had 10-12 people. I believe they also may have tours in Florence.
We were very pleased and were glad to not have to deal with purchasing tickets ourselves.

denisea

We are using Walks of Italy for the Vatican Museums/Sistine Chapel and also the Coliseum, for the small groups and expedited entry. We are also working Daniella Hunt for a trip to Tvoli (Hadrian's Villa and Villa D'Este). Her contact info is in the thread above from Kybourbon. She has been great to work with!

tom18

Check out ShellD's recent trip report, Our Amazing European Adventure, for suggestions for both Rome and Florence.

jgg

Recently did Walks of Italy tours of Florence and the Vatican - both excellent!

Used Alessandra Mazzaccoli ([email protected]) for a great tour of the Colosseum/Forum.

ShellD

Hi! tom18 above mentioned my trip report, here's the link if you're interested

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...s-in-italy.cfm

But I will add the the group who recommends Walks of Italy. We did several tours with them and found them wonderful. We chose their semi-private tours, which are limited in size. However you can also pay a bit extra for private tours. The main difference other than size is the private tours can be scheduled on your time instead of set times.

In Florence we used a company called Tours by Locals to find our guide and she was outstanding. Their website matches you up with local guides based on your interests for the day. We had a totally customized tour.

Here's also a link to my blog, which is pretty much the same as my trip report, only it includes the pictures and you can probably find each day easier since the links to the pages are listed on the side.