My husband and I decided a week before we left for Rome that maybe we should book a tour of the Vatican.  I contacted LivItaly with some questions and after they were quickly answered we decided to go with the early morning entry tour of the Vatican.  I then got wrapped up in all of the options for tours and also booked the Underground Coliseum tour and then the Walking Tour of Rome.  I definitely got carried away but I am so glad I did!  We started our  trip to Rome with the Walking Tour on the evening of our arrival.  Our tour guide was Pam and although we selected a small group tour we were lucky to be the only ones.  As we watched tour groups of 20+ people go by with their headsets following along in a line with their guide, we had constant dialogue with Pam about all the things that interested us as well as an in depth history lesson.  She gave us wonderful tidbits of information about all of the places we went by – I thought my head might explode with information, but it was wonderful.  She answered our individual questions, took photos for us and gave us recommendations along the way – we finished that tour with what was easily the best gelato in Rome!  What a way to start our trip!

Day two we had our Underground Tour of the Coliseum with Luca.  This was also a small group tour and we were with four other lovely people.  Still a great size and Luca shared so much history and information about the Coliseum, the Roman Forum and Roman history in general.  He used his iPad to show us pictures to enhance some of the things he was describing.  You would never get this with a large group tour.  Aside from being informational, Luca was very entertaining – we had a great day!

Day three we woke up and had a driver pick us up from our hotel for a private tour of the Vatican with the early entrance.  To our wonderful surprise our guide that day was Pam again.  She was able to whisk the two of us around through the crowds so that we covered so much at the Vatican.  We had heard about large crowds and waiting – we didn’t experience any of that with this tour. Pam used art books to describe what we were going to see in the Sistine Chapel before our tour started since you should not be speaking once you are in there.  It was wonderful to go in and know what we were looking at to have that history in mind.  Truly a fabulous experience.

Overall I would recommend all three of these tours, but mostly LivItaly and their guides.  Coming from the US I was certainly worried that something would go wrong or that I would feel like I wasted my money – nothing could be further from the truth – it was the best thing we did booking these tours!  We could have walked through all of these places on our own, but would never appreciate all that we were told – I learned so much and loved every minute of it.  Thank you, LivItaly!!!!