Visiting Rome, Venice, Florence in May -- need tour advice!
 

I would love to get some advice on how best to arrange tours of museums, etc. in Rome, Venice, and Florence. Should I buy tickets at the museums/churches in advance? Does anyone know a good tour guide or company to contact? I assume I will need a guide at the Forum and Colosseum, at the very least!
Thanks in advance for any help !

Hi Mlsa - These companies have all been recommended here for Venice tours:

www.walksinsidevenice.com

www.tours-venice-italy.com/

http://www.tours-italy.com/venice-ci...e_in_1_day.htm

www.citytoursinvenice.com

www.venicescapes.org

www.aguideinvenice.com

Hope this helps ...

Steve

If you plan on visiting Uffizi and/or Accademia, I highly recommend booking ahead of time.

Hi M,

Uffizi and Academia Museum Reservations
The easiest and cheapest way is to call Florence 1010987 (dial around number), 011 (U.S. international access code) 39 (Italy's country code) then 055-294-883 8:30-18:30 M-F and 8:30-12:00 Sat. Florence time. There is a long listing of press 1 for this and 2 for that--press 4 for bookings. You will get an English speaking operator and in 2-3 minutes YOU CAN RESERVE FOR BOTH. This is through the reservation service at the Uffizi and costs beyond the normal entry fee only about 3 euro for the service. This is MUCH cheaper than the commercial booking services.

You will not be charged for the reservations unless you use them.

Have a nice visit.

mlsa - I like Context Tours of the different companies we used when in Italy.

I did a really cool "food crawl" in Florence..something different that was super fun!

Used them as well for our Forum Colosseum tour... well worth every penny.

If time allows in Rome, consider the Borghese Gardens and the exquisite gallery of painting and sculpture in the villa there, built in the early 1600's by Pope Paul V's favorite nephew, Cardinal Scipione Borghese, lifelong patron of Bernini.

You might want to take a look at their website, http://www.galleriaborghese.it/borghese/it/default.htm , as we are talking Extreme Sculpture! These pieces will not be hitting the road, ever.

We enjoyed an exhilarating afternoon there and were privy to so many other delights of Rome, thanks to Insider's Italy, a travel planning service out of Rome/New York.

We can recommend, and henceforth would not consider a visit to Rome or anywhere in Italy, without them. If you peruse their site http://www.insidersitaly.com/ , you'll see that they are a personalized travel planning service for the intellectually curious and the independent. That can encompass family travel, as this outfit now has considerable practical experience tailoring trips to include and delight children as well.

Among their many opinionated, always spot-on suggestions, was a visit to the once proletariat Testaccio neighborhood in Rome, where we spent an exciting weekday morning. First we visited Volpetti, Via Marmorata 47, Rome's best food store according to Insider's Italy, run by two brothers, Claudio and Emilio Volpetti who sell hard-to-find, Slow Food-resurrected and classic cheeses and hams/salami, as well as fresh pasta, dried pasta (Insider's told us about the Latini brand), legumes, honey, wines, freshly baked pizza, excellent breads and prepared dishes.

Laden with purchases, we turned round the corner to the Piazza del Testaccio market, a covered square, with fishmongers on the left, butchers at the back, cheesemongers at the front, and shoe and general goods merchants on the right. And at the center is the produce market -- the most dynamic and beautiful one we visited in two weeks in Italy.

Whatever your interests, wherever your passions lie, Rome probably contains some aspect of these in its many and complex layers. Much of the food in Italy could be described as Extreme Food, and also may not be available in a town near you, ever. As you walk out of the Accademia in Florence, having just seen Michelangelo's David, your eyes will be assaulted by a McDonald's. Just say no, no, no!

Though we'd been to Italy before, we felt that the planning executed by Insider's Italy utterly maximized our experience. Buon viaggio!