I'm going to Italy in October 2010 with friends, and want to do two tours, one of ancient Rome and one of Vatican City. Jason Spiehler's name comes up repeatedly, but I can't figure out what tour group he's currently with, and how to contact him. Romewalks.com is listed in one recent review as being Jason's new company, but he is also lists in posts of toursofrome and walksin italy! Which is correct????? Tosca Perotti and Daniella Hunt are also mentioned as being excellent. Any thoughts? Semi-private vs private? Any I'm forgetting that are good?

We used Anthony with livitaly.com last Fall. He was excellent and everyone who I have recommended him to has been delighted.
He did the Vatican tour for us. He grew up in Rome and is extremely knowledgeable. He went to school in California and his mother is American.

I have heard many glowng reviews for Context:Rome tours.

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

Thanks very much! The above link is also very helpful, and I had not seen it before in my searches. Has anyone taken the official Vatican tour? As it is very inexpensive, we were thinking of that as a possibility, then taking a day long private or semi-private tour of ancient Rome. If we would get more out of a private or semiprivate tour of the Vatican, we are willing to pay the money to do so, though.

Another vote for Francesca Caruso, cited in the URL posted by kybourbon above. Our group of 10 used her several years ago, and she was outstanding.

On the other hand, before we booked Francesca, we had taken the Vatican Museum tour, and our guide was less than stellar, seemingly only going through the motions and skipping many of the highlights. We wished we had booked Francesca for the Vatican as well.

We were fortunate to also take a tour of the colosseum/forum with Francesca this May. We were a party of 5, two of us had visited previously and three had not--Francesca kept all of us enthralled and engaged for nearly 4 hours!!

Rome was very crowded during our visit and she also told us how to look at all of Rome with "different eyes" and the crowds somehow disappeared!! I guess you can tell I thought Francesca was wonderful Deborah

unfortunately, Francesca is not free during our time in Rome; any other suggestions?

I can suggest you to go here http://www.iloverome.net/category/bookings-tickets/ and book a tour for the colosseum and vatican city.

italynovice - I also tried to book with Francesca and she was not available, but sent me the following recommendations of some of her colleagues she "thinks very highly of":

*Sonia Tavoletta at soniatav AT aliceposta.it
*Luca Capparucci at lucaguide AT gmail.com
*Alessandra Mazzoccoli at alemazzoccoli AT gmail.com
*Richard Bowen at rbowen AT libero.it

I highly recommend Katie Parla, who we used as our guide for the Vatican/St. Peters and the Pantheon. She was fantastic and receives rave reviews on several boards. www.katieparla.com

italynovice and wendymindy, I'm sorry Francesca isn't available for you but if you receive a recommendation from Francesca I wouldn't hesitate to select one because she is so passionate about people having good guides with the correct information. I remember something that really bothered her at the colosseum.

We were standing with her at the colosseum and there was a large group near us, Francesca turned to me and told me how much it disturbs her when she hears guides giving the wrong information on their tours. I think she is very careful who she would recommend if she can't lead your tour. Deborah

I wound up booking with one of her suggestions, Alessandra.

I had also looked at Katie Parla, but she charges a flat fee for a group of up to 6 people and as it is just my husband and I traveling, she was much too expensive.

I just heard back from Sonia Tavoletta, one of Francesca's recommendations. She is available and reasonable in cost. I also heard back from Daniella Hunt, who also gets good reviews. Thank you very much for advice!

Bookmarking for future reference!

I am surprised that no one has yet mentioned Federica D'Orazio at www.touristinrome.com
[email protected]
We loved our tour with her last year & have since referred her to several friends, all of whom had wonderful tours. She is an expert historian, friendly, attentive, and informative. She prefers to meet on site, and I think her prices are a little more reasonable.
As has been said, it is absolutely worth the cost to do at least one private tour.

I'm even more surprised that no one actually responded to the question. Jason Spiehler is Walks of Italy, none of those other ones you mentioned, they're all different companies actually. His website is www.walksofitaly.com and his email is [email protected]
We just came back from our tours in September and had an amazing time with them. I'm sure italynovice that you've already booked something, let us know how it goes either way!

spiceoflife, what tour did you book with Jason? We leave in two days, and ended up booking with walksofitaly for an evening city tour on Oct 10th, so I presume we may actually have this tour with Jason. We book with Sonia Tavoletti for ancient Rome on Oct 11th, and Daniella Hunt for Vatican on Oct 12th. We'll do the Borghese Gallery on our own on the 13th, then wander around on our own after that. Any recommendations?

I am thrilled for you that you were able to book Sonia! We used her and a fellow aerobics instructor used her upon my recommendation the following year and also had nothing but glowing comments about her upon her return.

I'll post after the trip with our experience with all three tours and tourguides!