know any good personal tour guides in Rome, Florence?
 

I've never really used a personal guide to take us on a city tour but am open to the idea for an upcoming trip to Rome and Florence. Would like to hear any first hand good news / bad news stories about using guides. Also, please let me know if you can recommend any. I think it might be fun!!!

Scale Reale - discussed many times on this site. They have a website - www.scalereale.com

In addition to scalareale - - widely recognized as the Cadillac of personal guided tours, expensive and worth it - - this (not-so-)old thread has a lot of information on others.<BR><BR>http://www.fodors.com/forums/pgMessages.jsp?fid=2&tid=1359549<BR><BR>Best wishes,<BR><BR>Rex<BR>

For Rome, contact Giancarlo Alu. His command of English is excellent. His e-mail address is [email protected]<BR><BR>He'll ask you what you're most interested in, and tailor a tour to your time, budget and interests.<BR><BR>Buon Viaggio,<BR>BC

topping<BR>

~<BR>CORRECTION on website URL. Scale Reale is an ".org". Address is<BR>http://www.scalareale.org<BR>

I had planned to use Scala Reale but the price was a tad high for my budget traveler wallet. We actually ended up standing in line behind a guide at the Collisuem who was there showing some friends around. We got to talking and they let us tag along. We really enjoyed the tour and ended up hiring him for a full tour of St. Peter's and the Vatican Museum.<BR><BR>I saved his email it's [email protected]<BR><BR>The young man's name is Jasper. His love for the art in the Vatican was simply written all over his face. He would come to a piece he liked and get so excited. His enthusiasm was contagious.