Tours in Rome? Would you recommend any?
 

We are going to be there for 3 short days at the tail end of our honeymoon... would you recommend these at all, and if so, any in particular? Also, are there any spetacular restaurants that I should look into booking in advance? Thanks!

I would recommend a walking tour of Rome at Night and one of the vatican musuems/St Peters. You can search on Rome Tours on this site and get plenty of recommendations. Ours was done with a firm that had 'free tours' in the forum and then pitched the rest of their offerings at the end. The guide we had was from Florida - extremely knowledgeable and kept us interested and on task.

And I would recommend (by all my heart) the walking tours of Enjoy Rome (www.enjoyrome.com) My experience with the Vatican and the Ancient Rome tours were magnificant
Bjorn, Oslo

My husband and I were in Rome for three days at the end of our Italian trip just last week. The whole trip was wonderful... We did go on a three hour night tour of Rome which met at the Piazza Navona. From there to the Forum, to Trevi Fountain, the Piazza Venezia, Capitoline Hill...etc. It was a nice small tour (lucky, I guess) and the guide (Inga) was wonderful, very informative. I'd highly recommend it. The tour was booked online with Viator, but I'm trying to remember the tour operator... We also did something like what cmeyer54 did. We went to St. Peter's Basilica and blended in with a "free" tour and afterwards signed up for a tour of the Vatican Museum for around 20 euros. Check Viator's website for a description. I think it was around 25 euros each with them. One restaurant we absolutely loved was in the Trastevere section of Rome. It was called Spiritu Divino. A mix of locals and travelers, wonderful food, very personal service. The building is very historical too. The basement is at street level from around the year 100, and from around 1000 till 1200 it was used as a synagogue. The owner invited us to go downstairs to what is now a winecellar to take pictures. I hope you love Rome as much as we did.

I would definitely recommend visiting the Vatican and St. Peter's with a tourguide, as opposed to on your own. I've done both, and doing it with a knowledgeable guide was much better.

I just got back from a trip to Rome, and took a 4-hour Vatican tour booked at the American Express office at Piazza de Spagna. It was a bit pricey, but our guide Giancarlo was excellent, one of the best guides I've ever had (and I've done plenty of half-day tours over the years). He's a professor of art and archeaology and when we were in St. Peter's, all the other guides kept saying "Ciao, Professor!"

We liked that tour so much, we did another 4-hour Amex tour the next day of the Colosseum and Forum. The guide was also excellent, although not as good as Giancarlo.

The places that most people say that you need a tour for are the Colosseum/Ancient Rome and the Vatican Museum/St Peters.

We had read a lot about the Colosseum and had the Rome:Past and Present book, so we didn't really feel like we needed a tour of that.
We did the free tour of the Forum-which was great, some guy from Oregon just came up to us and invited us to join. We also did the tour of the Vatican Museums that you can book through the museum when you buy your ticket and we didn't like that one as much. We felt like we didn't get to see very much. I would probably go with the audio guide or a better tour next time at the Vatican. I tried to book it through Enjoy Rome, but that didn't work because their tour conflicted with our Scavi Tour that morning. I saw lots of free tours at St Peters too and I now wish that we would have done that, you never know what you might be missing out on if you don't speak Italian.
We did the audio guide at the Borghese Gallery and thought that was perfect.

cheryllj, do you have a link for those AMEX tours?

We were basically wandering around the forum with an audio guide trying to figure out what the piles of rocks were when we heard a young woman doing a great commentary in English. We joined her 'free' group and at the end, gave her about 10e because she was so good. We took the Rome at night tour with her - ours met at the Vittorio Emmanuelle but followed a similar route as the others - CatSanctuary, Pantheon, Trevi with a stop for gelatto, church of the 12 apostles (where Michelangelo was FIRST buried), and the capitoline museum. The Vatican Museum really needs a guide as there are about 1000 rooms and you'll get lost. That tour ended at St Peters where we had a choice to go on our own, hook up with a guide who then asked if we wanted a free tour in which case others would join as we went along or a paid tour for 15e for the four of us. We took the 15e deal as did one other family and had his undivided attention for 3 hours! Not being catholic, it was very good to have him describe the church, statues, construction, etc. He also did a great job on the courtyard construction and overall scheme for the church (arms of the church reaching out or a keyhole since St Peter holds the keys...)

I've used Scala Reale for small, guided tours, as have others here, and I can't praise them enough. Docents are learned as well as entertaining. Their tours of the Forum/Colosseum and of the Vatican are the two most often recommended. They also provide neat stuff that will be waiting for you at your hotel: restaurant recommendations, a map, etc.
Very efficient bunch.

Does anyone know what company does these free tours? Of course I know a tip is properly expected at the end of them.

My daughter and I took the Enjoy Rome tour of Ancient and Old Rome. We felt we got much more out of the sites than we would have on our own, and the guide was terrific. As a result, we booked the Enjoy Rome tour of the Vatican, which we really enjoyed as well.

The Amex office books tours by Vastours (the same company that Enjoy Rome uses for bus tours):

http://www.romeguide.it/vastours/

There are two "Prestige" tours you can book at the Amex office that are offered in English only (tour A-1 is the Vatican and B-1 is the Colosseum-Forum) and those supposedly have the better guides. But they are pricier than other guided tours.

I can't remember the name of the tour company we had but they all wore little beige cycling caps.

We were in Rome/Venice last week. In Rome, we took a romewalks tour of the Coliseum and forum, and a scala reale tour of the Vatican. Both were excellent and well worth the money. I think at both of these sites, you really need a guide to point things out to you, and put them in context. There are so many things we would never have noticed if we had just gone on our own.

I have reservations for the SCAVI tour -- I'm suposed to pick up the tickets at the Excavations Office 10 minutes prior...where is this office located? St Peter's or The Vatican?

The Scavi office is located on the left side of St. Peter's as you are facing the cathedral. You go through an arched entrance (show your reservation confirmation to the Swiss guards) and the office is right there on your right.

You do NOT have to go through security before going in- that is a separate line.

Big difference in price!?

Ancient Rome walking tours vary in price from approx $21 (enjoyrome) to 60$ (Scala Reale). Comments appreciated on your money's worth and differences if you used both companies.

I'm curious, planning a trip to Rome in May 2005 with my dad. He has a difficult time walking for long periods of time and must sit frequently. Will these tours work for us?

Deborah, I also need to sit frequently, and I was worried about the walking tours. I ended up finding places to sit more often than I expected, especially in the Forum, which is filled with rocks suitable for use as benches.

rah--we used romewalks for the ancient rome tour, and it was 40 Euro per person. The scala reale tour we took of the Vatican was 60 Euro per person. I found both of them to be worth the expense. I think the difference between the companies is the expertise and knowledge of their guides. Our romewalks guide was a PhD and an experienced archeologist, and therefore passed along a great deal of information that made the tour very interesting. Same with scala reale, tour guide was an expert in the religious art and really put everything in context. Can't speak about the one you mentioned as we didn't use them. Any tour is only as good as the guide. Some companies merely use students that may know quite a bit about the sites you are visiting, but not as much as some of the others. You should look into the background of the guides that company uses to see exactly what their experience is. And if you don't want to go with the more expensive ones, I'm sure that the others would be very useful too. I believe that any guide is better than doing it yourself for these sites.
Good luck, and enjoy.