My husband and I will be travelling to Rome and Florence in April (around Easter). I understand it is recommended to book a tour to the Vatican before we leave. Does anyone have any advice on this subject? We are also interested in finding good walking tours of ancient Rome as well as walking tours in Florence.

ContextRome is often considered the best; its groups are always small.

They also have an office in Florence.

Thanks for the advice. I have heard of them and their tours look great. We will be travelling with our 10 year old daughter. Any idea if there are some tours that are more "kid friendly"?

Frankly, I've never taken a tour, so I'm really no expert and just reported on the general consensus here.

My guess is that "kidfriendliness" depends on the individual guide more than on the tour operator. I'm sure I've seen mentions here of tours that kids enjoyed a lot because the guide made it interesting for them. I just don't remember what tour operator or what guide.

You might, as a desperate measure, try to put <Rome +tour +kid> (without the arrows, of course) into the Search Box and see what comes up.

We used Through Eternity Tours and had great luck with them. I thought Context might be a bit more involved than we needed for our kids and we kept to around 3-4 hours at a time. That was plenty! Jane

Thanks. Did you book your tours before you left for Italy? Did you do the group tours or the private ones?

My DH and I did Through Eternity's ancient Rome tour and loved it. I believe our guide was Marley; she was wonderful - knowledgable and very personable. It is a great tour, although I'm not sure how kid friendly any 3-4 hour tour would be - I guess it would depend on the kid, but even DH and I were tired after the tour, as a kid I think I would have been exhausted (part of this was the heat, it was early Sept.).

We are going in April with our kids and after researching we booked our Vatican & Forum/Colosseum tours with http://www.rome-tours.com/index.shtml

Have a great time.

We toured the Vatican and the Ancient City with Rome Walks http://www.romewalks.com/
Fabulous, inexpensive way to see wonderful sites with professional commentary.

Anna Roz

My husband and I were in Rome in September and booked a Colosseum/Roman Forum tour with Francesca Caruso. She was FABULOUS. Here's here e-mail info. [email protected] She is recommended on this site and especially with Rick Steves. She's very passionate about her city, speaks PERFECT English. She will tour whatever interests you, and I believe can do Vatican tours as well. Please check into a Scavi tour also.

We also used Through Eternity since we had children with us and wanted something shorter than the Context Rome tour. They will do any length tour you want. My girls both thought it was great to get a personal tour. It was well worth the cost.

You may want to look into booking with Enjoy Rome. They are good and inexpensive.