Time out to reflect
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How hot is Rome in the summer?
[September 2023] Summer 2023 is almost at its end and I decided to recollect some thoughts about the “heat waves”: last July I received some calls and mails from the other side of the ocean (friends, former or future guests, journalists) asking how I was coping with the heat and if I was ok! I […]
Vatican tours? We quit.
When I began as a tour guide – 15 years ago – I wouldn’t say the Vatican Museums were ever empty, they were definitely busy, yet bearable and occasionally even pleasant. There are unique masterpieces in the collections, and I’m not just talking about the Sistine chapel: we also have Raphael, Botticelli, Perugino, Caravaggio, all […]
How can you trust A Friend in Rome?
Let’s admit it: the problem with tourist services is that you rarely need them more than once, or surely not very often. Booking a tour is not like buying milk everyday and making your choice based on your own daily experience. You have to make an investment without really seeing nor testing what you are […]
Shopping for tours in ateliers instead of malls
Do you know when supermarkets started to exist in the commercial world? In 1830 the so-called “Magazines de Nouveautés” opened in France. Soon later Macy’s opened in New York. Food stores opened in the US during WW1 and the traditional habit of single shops for different items waned after millennia. It’s easy to understand why, […]
Why we do not sell underground Colosseum tours
[written in April 20222] We already tried to explain in another blogpost why it is so difficult to visit the underground sector of the Colosseum. Annually I make an attempt, to verify if the situation is still the same, sadly it’s getting always worse. Today (April 29, 2022) I decided to help some Italian friends to […]
FAQ: how do you remember all this “stuff” about Rome?
We are often asked how can we remember all the infos we provide during a tour. The game of jigsaw explains well our system of memorising information and concepts connected to the history of Rome. At the beginning you are… puzzled! You do not know where to start from, too many pieces, let’s imagine an […]
Food weirdos
[revised November 2021] Food can be a divisive subject, something so personal and “ancestral” that we immediately notice when somebody has different eating habits from us. So, it was fun to collect some of the aspects that make us, Italians, seem weird to the eyes of people coming from another continent: we usually eat lunch […]
How do we create a new tour?
[revised November 2021] Preparing a new tour is now of the most exciting parts of our tour guide job! How do we proceed when we decide to introduce a new itinerary in our portfolio? (BTW, current portfolio already includes more than 80 tours/activities, but we love diversity, even when it comes to tours!) first of […]
Virtual tours? No, thanks
Sometimes what better defines you, is what you are NOT. For instance: we do not lead big groups, we do not put together strangers in the same tour, we do not offer segway tours. And now we do not offer virtual tours. Nothing against many of my colleagues who are doing it, each one in […]
How to start planning a trip to Rome: 5 tips
[revised November 2023] In time of Covid-19 we learnt that sometimes you cannot travel and you just have to wait and dream. But this is not necessarily a lost time. Have you ever heard of the “Grand Tour”? It was a “travel habit” of the bygone days, just reserved to upper classes (and mostly male […]