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    Gray Line - I Love Rome

    3.5 (58 reviews)
    Open 6:30 am - 8:30 pm

    Gray Line - I Love Rome Photos

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    8 total stops
    Sherri S.

    One day in Rome and wanted to see as much as possible. The hop on hop off bus was perfect for our needs. We didn't have a reservation...just walked up to one of the many kiosks in the area and purchased a ticket. We paid $20 each (said it was $22 however). Stopped at 8 locations. ( see my attached picture for the stops). You can get off at any of the stops and get back on a different bus. There is a hop on representative at every stop, it is managed extremely well. Waiting for a bus is not bad at all as one stops every 15 minutes. Not a long wait. Headphones are provided and you plug in right at your seat. A friendly voice recording informs you of the sights. The recording has volume control and channels for different languages. For example, English was #2. It is very easy to spot the pink bus. If you stayed on the bus without stopping I believe it is an hour and a half long. Never thought I would ever do a hop on hop off bus and surprisingly I was quite pleased and impressed.

    Us at the Colosseum. Love it

    really good tour Emanuele was very informative and interesting he knew loads of facts and was very friendly . the tour of the Colosseum and Ancient Rome was amazing we thoroughly enjoyed it

    Outside the entrance to Vatican City.
    Matthew M.

    We did the Vatican City, Sistine Chapel, St Peter's Bascilica skip the line tour - and let me tell you "ROBERTA" was one of the most entertaining guides we have ever used! She had so much energy and you can truly see her passion for the arts. It was a warm day in July so make sure you're prepared with water and sunscreen. Also for inside the Vatican make sure you have your shoulders covered, they are pretty strict about this. I would recommend this tour for anyone visiting Rome, I'm not a big on religion but seeing all of the ancient architecture and art was really incredible!

    Pompeii
    Lillian L.

    We did the Pompeii and Naples 1-day tour through Gate One with this tour agency. The day before I called to confirm pick up time and they said 730AM pick up but our paper from gate one said to come an hour earlier than assigned time 730AM for pick up. Later that night, luckily, we were in the room and received a call to be picked up at 630AM. Next day 630AM: the minivan driver was nice enough to allow all of us five minutes to grab a quick breakfast at our hotel. He dropped us off at the main tour bus at 7AM for take off. The bus then departed at 720AM. Our bus guide was Steffano and driver Luigi. The official tour guide was a lady. They were very wonderful. One hour into the ride, we stopped at a visitor resting point for coffee & toilets. 90 minutes later we arrived at Naples and this was disappointing. 45 minutes walking through the city center, looking at buildings, and back into the bus. I was expecting to be at the coastal side for a close up picture of the shore/piers! Such a waste of valuable time. Then bus ride an hour later, we arrived at a restaurant for the included lunch. It was so mediocre. But I don't expect much when anyone says lunch with guided tour is included. We stayed for an hour. Then when I thought we were going into the excavation site finally, we stopped at a seashell/ jewelry shop for 30 minutes. Honestly this can be edited out of the itinerary. POMPEII entrance site was right next to it and I wished they mentioned that so we can just start ahead on our own instead of waiting around. Suggestion: They can briefly mention this place for those who want to visit/buy and the rest can go ahead. Finally the tour started and it was quick, about 1.5 hour total at the site. Our lady guide was great - very entertaining but I wished we had more time to freely roam INSIDE the site!!! Seriously, POMPEII site is SO BIG. I felt rushed. We didn't get to enjoy everything, just briefly the main stuff. I saw skeletal bones tucked away in the corner catching nobody's attention bc it was so incognito from the ancient vases showcasing, hence, throwing people off that the rest of the room wasn't interesting. Our tour guide didn't even walked to the bones to show the group but she probably didn't know? They all briskly left that room. We didn't venture beyond the center square at the end of the three mummies. After 1.5 hrs inside, I noticed she took us to the exit for a free 20 minutes time to roam, I turned back but we were already past the no entry sign and was stopped by the security guy... luckily I had proof that I was already here and didn't mean to exit. I rushed back in and tried to take the majestic of it all in. Later I found out from the divided group, the Spanish group who came with us, saw more things we didn't see. Then after 90 minutes on the return bus, we stopped at the same resting point for 30 minutes. Then another hour into Rome. I felt this rest was unnecessary because the lady guide already gave the group that half hour post exit of Pompeii to rest/ toileting. I was okay at this point, the group were of older people and I guess they needed more rest. Here is the worst part: at the drop off from the main bus, we were personally directed to the wrong minivan driver although I asked our guide twice and he pointed to the driver who doesn't speak English. I tried to show the driver my hotel name from my phone to confirm but he just gestured for me to get on the minivan. I already felt iffy when the first passenger was dropped off bc it was not on my side of town where my hotel is. After the driver dropped off most of the people, he asked us our hotel, we replied, and he said that our hotel was not on his list! After it was just us on the minivan, he said he can't do anything about us. We reasoned that this was not on us. GREY LINE is still liable but with a language barrier it was frustrating. He offered to take us to the agency or we pay him personally to take us to the hotel. I was vexed at this point. We refused to pay more for transportation so he took us to the agency. I called their local GL phone enroute (kudos here to google voice for 1 cent/ minute or my phone bill would be outrageous) about the situation and they spoke to each other. I was feeling so sketchy because we were at the very back of the minivan and climbing over seats to try to give my phone to the driver so he can talk with GREY LINE rep. First they said we ourselves asked to be dropped off with this group on that side of town, no we did not. Then at the agency, they said we went to the wrong driver, no we did not because we were pointed to him witnessed by other tourists. GL did step up and provided us a taxi to our hotel. Communication with the rep on the phone helped but the people at the agency didn't initiate to talk to us so I had to be cautious and asked everything twice for insurance.

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    1 year ago

    Thank you Youssef for making our day. He helped us get to our tour bus on time as we were running really late.

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    Great tours, very well informed, patient and enthusiastic guides. We did the colosseum and Palantine tour and loved it.

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    Page 1 of 2

    Gray Line - I Love Rome Reviews in Other Languages

    Review Highlights - Gray Line - I Love Rome

    We didn't lunch with our tour so we kindly asked the tour guide if we can hitch a ride with them to the Colosseum.

    Mentioned in 14 reviews

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    Walks of Italy - Basilica San Marco.

    Walks of Italy

    3.8(93 reviews)
    1.3 km

    We did the Rome in a Day Tour with Vatican, Colosseum & Historic Center with Walks and it was…read morephenomenal. With an early start we were able to see several of the key sites including the colosseum and Vatican City. Our guides were amazing and so knowledgeable.

    I booked a tour for our family with Walks of Italy (also called "Walks & Devour Tours") for the…read morePrivate VIP Colosseum Tour with Roman Forum & Palatine Hill. DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!!!! First of all, we booked our tour for four people months in advance, and reserved an 8:30am slot (as the morning is the best time for this tour in late May, as Rome gets hot fast). A few months later, I was informed that our start time had been moved to 10:00am, with no options to rebook at a different time for the days we would be in Rome (5 days in late May 2026). We received instructions on where and when to meet our guide, for this small group (basically, our family) VIP tour. On the day of the tour, we arrived early at the designated location, but our guide was not there. An employee at a nearby cafe insisted that "the tour groups meet down those steps" and pointed to the pathway to the entrance of the Colosseum. We went down the steps and looked around but could not find our guide. When we returned to the designated area (still before the 10am start time), a guide from another company told us our guide had been there but had left a few minutes prior. We went looking for the guide "with the green WALKS sign" but could not find him/her. I tried calling the customer assistance number provided in the email but was put on eternal hold. More than an hour later I was finally able to speak to a customer service representative, who said "because you missed your guide, there is nothing I can do for you" (or words to that effect. Because our guide had our tickets/passes to get into the Colosseum and Palatine Hill, we had no way to even visit the Roman Forum. I logged into the government-run website to see if there was any way we could purchase scheduled-entry tickets for the Colosseum sometime later when we were still in Rome, and the only tickets were for late on our last afternoon, when we had already scheduled a "Small Group VIP Tour of the Vatican Museums" with Walks & Devour. I purchased these tickets, knowing that we could end up having another Walks & Devour Guide disappear/no-show leaving us to miss pretty much everything we had come to Rome to see. When I tried to cancel our VIP Vatican Museum Tour, I was told that we had already passed the refund window. When I explained what had happened, the customer service rep said there was nothing she could do. DO NOT BOOK ANY TOURS WITH WALKS & DEVOUR!!!!

    Photos
    Walks of Italy - Bridge of Sighs

    Bridge of Sighs

    Walks of Italy - Excited for our class to begin!

    Excited for our class to begin!

    Walks of Italy - The table is set

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    The table is set

    Real Rome Tours

    Real Rome Tours

    4.5(50 reviews)
    3.1 kmPrati

    My wife, mother-in-law and I used this company. We were running about 3 minutes late, even though…read morethe messaging we received was very clear to be early. My mother-in-law is elderly and getting around with her took more time than expected. Still, we arrived at the staging area and the staff was still very pleasant and accommodating. You can tell they were getting us to hurry because they know the area would be overrun with other tour groups. They really wanted us to have the best time and experience there. And they sat us in a very good spot for the Wednesday audience with the Pope. I would definitely recommend this company.

    Great tours! We did the Colosseum and Vatican tour. The Colosseum tour was with Ferdinando and his…read moreknowledge and passion for what he was showing us was obvious. He is definitely highly recommended. He is an archaeologist as well so he had a lot of fascinating things to share with us. We actually ran into him on three separate occasions in Rome by chance and he was great to talk to each time. The Colosseum tour we took also included the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill (both even more fascinating than the Colosseum in my opinion). The Vatican tour was with Claudia and she was equally as knowledgeable and fun! She obviously knew the folks she needed to to get around in this massive complex without having to wait for anything. The "no-line" entry most tours get has lines here. She had the hookup to get us even past those lines. The tour starts through the Vatican Museum and it was very crowded at the time we were there. She fought to make room for us to get in front of the masses to get a close look at all the things she wanted us to see. It was great to see her genuinely care about our experience. Just about every other tour group we saw in this places had at least 30 people in them. Both tours we took with Real Rome Tours had less than 10. We all had an equal opportunity to experience these beautiful sights with great knowledgable folks who even stuck around to answer any questions we had. They also give great recommendations on restaurants and other places you need to see while in Rome. Gerard was also a pleasure dealing with while booking our tours. He is well organized and gave us a great alternative when we wanted to do the Colosseum Underground tour that wasn't available. It worked out perfectly for us. I couldn't recommend Real Rome Tours any more.

    Photos
    Real Rome Tours
    Real Rome Tours - Quirinal palace.

    Quirinal palace.

    Real Rome Tours - Roman forum.

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    Roman forum.

    LivTours - St. Peter's Basilica

    LivTours

    4.4(64 reviews)
    1.5 kmCentro Storico

    We had an amazing tour with Maria Claudia through the Vatican City in July! She was so…read moreinformative, pleasant, and a real trooper guiding us in 100 degree weather! She was also very thorough and accommodating. We even watched her swoop up an injured bird in her hands to rescue it from getting trampled by tourists. Overall, an unforgettable day! Later the same day we did a Coliseum and Ancient City tour with Gabriella, who gave the same awesome informative type tour, and did it with a fab attitude in the humid heat. Overall, I would say this is a great company!

    I booked a Colosseum guided tour through LivTours for my family during a long planned trip to Rome,…read moremeant to celebrate my son's graduation from Lehigh University and my daughter's high school graduation. Instead of a memory to celebrate, we left with one none of us will forget for the wrong reasons. LivTours guides do not give guests individual paper tickets. The guide holds all admission on an electronic ticket and hands each guest a small sticker as the only proof of entry. On an extremely hot day, my sticker came loose. Our guide walked ahead with two other guests to the bookshop and, by her own account, only glanced back and saw our group heading toward the exit. She never confirmed we actually made it out and never checked that each of us still had proof of admission. When I reached the exit checkpoint, staff asked for my ticket. I had none, because LivTours never gave me one. I was told it was illegal to be in that area without a valid ticket, pulled aside, and questioned. The police were called. I stood there while my wife and children watched and had to step in to try to help me. My wife eventually pulled up our purchase receipt on her phone, and that is the only reason I was allowed to leave. LivTours admitted in writing that the guide saw our group heading toward the exit and left without confirming we made it out. She did not secure our exit. She did not check that everyone in the group actually cleared the checkpoint before she walked off with two other guests to the bookshop. Making sure a group actually exits a controlled site, not just watching them walk in that general direction, is a basic responsibility of a tour guide, especially one holding the only ticket that gives that group the right to be there in the first place. As an African American man in a foreign country, being publicly stopped, questioned, and detained by police in front of my family was humiliating in a way that is hard to put into words. This was supposed to be a trip celebrating my children's accomplishments. Instead they watched their father get pulled aside like a criminal because a tour guide walked away without making sure we had what we needed to leave. A LivTours representative called me shortly after and told me directly that a refund would be issued. Weeks later, after I put the complaint in writing, LivTours reversed course completely. They now claim the tour was "completed as planned" and that the incident was outside their control. Their own emails contradict that. They admit their guide saw us walking toward the exit and left without confirming we got out safely. They admit they do not provide physical tickets to guests. Those two facts together are exactly why this happened, and it happened because of how LivTours operates, not because of anything my family did. I would not recommend LivTours for any tour requiring facility exit past a checkpoint. Ask directly whether you will receive an individual physical ticket before you book, and get it in writing. Reggie

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    LivTours
    LivTours
    LivTours - Laocoon

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    Laocoon

    Rome Free Walking Tour - Us at the Trevi Fountain

    Rome Free Walking Tour

    5.0(2 reviews)
    0.9 kmCentro Storico

    Want a guided tour for low cost? This one is technically Free. This is a great way to be educated…read moreabout the sites rather than just showing up for a picture without any reference. Our tour guide, Laura, was informative and a trooper on a rainy day that included many who defected from our group once the wind kicked in. You get to stop at Rome's top sites. When it's over, you donate whatever is on your heart. The guides work on donations only. My only complaint is that after two hours, the tour stops, and you're pretty far from where you started. So we got lost trying to get back, eventually giving up and hailing a taxi. Book your ticket online, and be directed to the meeting point. Highly recommended.

    After being denied by another tour company for not having reservations, I contacted this one to…read moremake sure we didn't need one for their 4:30PM evening Colosseum tour and luckily we didn't. The meeting point is NEAR the spanish steps in front of the statue by the Versace building. Our tour guide was Fredricka (sp?) and she is a TRUE local Italian! She took us all around the city, stopped at the Trevi Fountain, Victor Emmanuel Monument, the Forum of Cesar and towards the Coloseum. We ended the tour right around sunset at the Colosseum which made for AMAZING photo ops! Fredricka is SUPER knowledgeable about the city and its history that everyone in our group was extremely impressed by her tour! She even recommended a small cute little local restaurant to us nearby that we would have NEVER found because it was so hidden from the main busy street. Definitely do the city tour with this company and if you get Fredricka, that's a bonus!

    Photos
    Rome Free Walking Tour - Trevi fountain

    Trevi fountain

    Rome Free Walking Tour - Ancient ruins

    Ancient ruins

    Rome Free Walking Tour - Piazza Venezia

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    Piazza Venezia

    Through Eternity Tours - Worst tour and tour guide

    Through Eternity Tours

    4.4(36 reviews)
    1.8 kmSan Lorenzo

    Do not book this tour! The tour guide was Andrea and she was rude, they separated our group and she…read morewas not willing to answer. She told me to stop talking as I was talking about the rest of our group. They told us tour was at 9:45 and it didn't start until 10:45 am. The tour guide also wasn't explaining much and wasn't tech savvy. Took forever to even get our tickets on her phone. She got mad I was trying o take a photo and told me I could come back later but she stopped to answer a personal phone call. Book through someone else!

    Only tour in my life where we had to look up Wikipedia DURING the tour…read more My Italian friend recommended this agency because we are Catholic, coming for the Jubilee and wanted a religion-centered tour - Jubilee/Early Christianity. The other people on our tour were also devout Catholic. I believe the tour was done by Maria Lazara. We do not know her name because she did not bother to introduce herself, nor did she ask our names (aside from checking our family name off). We met at the statue and then without any introduction to our tour, nor introduction to the St John of Laterna Church, she marched off in front of us to the Church's portico. It was a bad start. That's the main complaint: she gave no introduction to the tour or any site, she gave no church or historic context on how things came to be or how they evolved. She gave no Catholic perspective. A tour guide needs to be a storyteller! And I expected a guide well-versed in church history, both religious and urban! Instead, it was a bunch of random historic facts. She primarily spent her time pointing out symbolism in the paintings and mosaics. Clearly, she majored in art history, and the history of Christianity was a boring sideline to her. She liked pointing out that Laterna was populated early, while most of Rome was countryside - but why? How did that change? Where did Catholics live and why did they move? Why were these churches chosen for their Holy Doors? Why only 4 doors? She told us the Laterna Holy Door was an original bronze and a couple more facts and then we marched through as it were nothing. Nothing about why it is special that they are open, how Catholics view this moment, etc. IT IS SPECIAL. In speaking about the Jubilee, the only thing she said was that the Pope first started it once every 100 years, and since the Roman townspeople made money on tourism from the incoming pilgrims, they moved it to every 33 years or when they wanted. That's it - Jubilees were about making tourism dollars. End of her story. None of our group of 3 heard that the Sacred Steps were brought from Jerusalem and why, and where they were placed originally. All she did was say "it is not a hard job to move stairs." THEY ARE SPECIAL. She just said: you can up if you want, I'll wait here on my phone. Again, her specialty seemed to be art history not Catholic traditions or history, and 75% of the time, she spoke about symbolism. The blue and yellow of Mary, the keys of St. Peter. That's fine but there was no narrative, no church history. The tour ended exactly at 12 p.m. Clearly, she was glad to be out of there. Another note - yes, her English vocabulary was good, but she spoke sing-song Italian style and it was hard to follow her. She does not have the cadence of an English speaker. Very disappointed in Eternity Tours' guide. Aside: I really enjoyed Eternity Tours newsletter mailings.

    Photos
    Through Eternity Tours - Guide Thomas with his group inside the Catacombs

    Guide Thomas with his group inside the Catacombs

    Through Eternity Tours - Beautiful Amalfi Coast

    Beautiful Amalfi Coast

    Through Eternity Tours - Gracelyn showing a happy client the Colosseum!

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    Gracelyn showing a happy client the Colosseum!

    What a Life Tours - Vatican City, What a Life Tours

    What a Life Tours

    4.7(40 reviews)
    3.4 kmPrati

    We booked an early morning Vatican tour with What a Life Tours for our trip to Rome last month, and…read moreit was an A+ way to explore the world's smallest country. We could've visited on our own, as many obviously do, but it was great to have a skilled guide to put all that marble and history in context. We'd already paid to come to Rome and set aside a morning to see Vatican City. The added value we got out of the tour far outweighed the incremental expense. I found the tour on Get Your Guide, where it was highly rated with thousands of reviews, and I liked that it was a small group situation, with a maximum of ten participants. We received strict instructions to arrive before 7:45 at the What a Life office, within walking distance of the Vatican. We checked in and got assigned to our tour group, with an amazing guide named Giulia. She set us up with audio devices that let us hear her through our earphones even when she was just whispering--a cool bit of tech I'd never encountered before, but saw again twice more before leaving Italy. We arrived in time to enter the Vatican Museums right at 8:00, the start of visiting hours. Our tickets allowed us to skip the line, which was nice in mid-November, but no doubt doubly nice during peak season. Giulia was fantastic, so smart and informative and funny. She knew how to corral us, and I got the sense that she could work very easily under much worse conditions. She let us know how lucky we were to see the Vatican on such a quiet morning. There were plenty of people, but the crowd was apparently nothing compared to the crush of summer or early fall. The Vatican is so grand it was almost overwhelming, and it was extremely helpful to have a guide to keep us oriented. She gave us so much insight into what we were seeing, pointing out the highlights and offering a running commentary with a dry wit that was all Giulia. In the Gallery of Maps in the Vatican Museums, she showed my husband where he could find the village his family came from, painted on a 16th-century Fresco. She also prepared us well for the Sistine Chapel, where visitors are not allowed to talk, using down moments to tell us about the chapel and its artwork, with the aid of a well labeled print-out. The tour was three hours long and encompassed the museums, the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica. We could've spent several more hours in the museums alone, but we saw a lot, moving at a pretty brisk pace. The tour was very well calibrated. I can't think of a single thing I would have changed. I thought about booking our Colosseum tour through What a Life (would've saved me a review) but saw that the one they offered had very few ratings, compared to the thousands they had for the Vatican. I'm curious what their other tours are like, and have more confidence in the company overall after going on this one. If you're visiting the Vatican, in any case, What a Life Tours is a top notch provider. We saw and learned so much in those three hours, and had a truly wonderful time.

    We did the early entry (7:45 am) tour with Jeannette. She was amazing. Her knowledge was expansive…read moreand being an art historian made it even more amazing. She not only covered the immense history of the Vatican, but her knowledge of the artists and their works was very helpful. I would not hesitate to recommend her and thus company. It was limited to a group of ten made it so easy to stay together and not lose anyone.

    Photos
    What a Life Tours - Papal throne at St. Peter's basilica.

    Papal throne at St. Peter's basilica.

    What a Life Tours - Vatican City, What a Life Tours

    Vatican City, What a Life Tours

    What a Life Tours - Vatican City, What a Life Tours

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    Vatican City, What a Life Tours

    Gray Line - I Love Rome - walkingtours - Updated August 2026

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