Private guided tours of Italy
 

Some friends and I are headed to Italy next summer for the first time. We would like a guided tour but don't necessarily want to be on a motor coach with 50 other people. Does anyone have experience with private guided tours in Italy? Any recommendations?? Thanks!

Here's a thread where people recommended private guides.

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

I presume that you mean individual day tours for specific sihts or areas. A private guided tour for yuor entire trip would be enormously expensive - paying for private transit, cost of a driver/guide with his hotel and meals. Plus - if you want someone to arrange the tour - that would be a whole other set of costs.

Well, you can hire drivers for every leg of the trip if you wish. I've done so for clients.

Most opt at some point to use public transport between major cities, but I have had clients that never stepped on a train or bus.

You can also use private drivers and guides for daily excursions, which is easy enough to arrange.

This is all expensive, but not without precedence.

It's not clear if you object to group tours or the size of the group. Abercrombie & Kent offers 2 tours to Italy with a group size of 24 maximum.

http://www.abercrombiekent.com/searc...=0&stf=0&scp=1

Tauck also offers small group tours.

http://www.tauck.com/tours/europe-to...Small%20Groups

Agree that if you are willing to travel with others in a small group look at the more upscale tours. They are obviously more expensive that the large groups ones - but much less expensive than private guides would be.

Tauck usually get excellent reviews - and you can ask how many they limit the tour to.

Thanks for all of the info!