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.

AMAZING tour experience!…read more We had a private 4-hour golf cart tour (highlights of all major attractions) which allowed us to see so many special places all over the city and from vantage points we would never have found on our own. Plus the golf cart was just fun whipping down random cobblestone streets and through crowds of people. It was a really special experience for us, and our tour guide was superb; very jocular and down to earth. As part of the tour our guide also got us into the pantheon for free and showed us around one of the local churches which had unique graphic illusions (as well as some creepy skulls/skeletons incorporated into the religious artwork). One of my favorite parts of the tour was stopping to check out Giardino degli Aranci (orange grove public square overlooking the city at night). Highly recommended.

AWESOME in every way! Our driver Matteo was absolutely…read morefantastic. Personable and knowledgeable, he was like an extension of our family, not just a tour guide. Do you want to see a lot of Rome in a short time? This is the way to do it!

They went above and beyond my expectations. I needed to change the time of my tour, but had not…read morepurchased this flexibility. When I called they said they would take my number and call if there was a cancelation but they did not offer hope. The next morning we got a call from them and were abel to accommodate. But time was really tight. While in the taxi driving across Rome they called and let me know we might not make it in time for the timed entry they asked to speak with the driver to get a closer drop off location. But then when we got there, they called me again to make sure I made it and connected to the tour guide who had the tickets. NEVER have I experienced such wonderful and caring customer service. The tour guide herself, Sylvia, was excellent and knowledgeable able to answer questions that dove deeper into hidden meaning in the art. Great experience. Skip the line is very much worth the cost.

Last week I booked two tours through Viator, one in Rome and one in Barcelona. My previous Viator…read moretours have been very good. The Barcelona tour reservation went well but I am VERY dismayed about the Rome tour. I accidentally booked the wrong time for my Rome tour (I wanted to go around the same time as my friends) and realized it immediately. I called within 10 minutes to change it but was told I COULD NOT CHANGE THE TIME SINCE IT WAS SOLD AS A NONCHANGEABLE TOUR. BEWARE OF THIS WHEN YOU BOOK WITH THIS ORGANIZATION AND BE VERY, VERY SURE YOU ARE BOOKING THE CORRECT TOUR, TIME AND DAY BECAUSE THEIR CUSTOMER SERVICE LEAVES MUCH TO BE DESIRED, even when you are requesting a change for a tour that is FOUR MONTHS AWAY and booked only minutes before the request.

Our family of four joined another six people on the Testaccio 15-year anniversary tour and lucked…read moreout with Edma as our guide - not shown on their web site, so don't know how we got her. She was instantly personable, funny, thoughtful, and energetic without being nutty. We had a great first stop that ended up being a restaurant (Masto) we were delighted to return to later in the week and the owner happened to be there and we had a wonderful time with her again, and enjoyed the dinner just as we had the tasting. The stops were great, the walking easy, the food good, and Edma was a fountain of local geography and food culture information. We all felt like we got great value and were happy with the experience!

Took the twilight food walking tour through the Jewish"Ghetto" with Fabio. He was knowledgeable,…read morefriendly, funny and all around great! We visited about 6 different places and tried so many foods - I did not expect to be THIS FULL!! Personal faves included the pork stew, the SUPPLI, and the fried artichoke. Loved the tour, the history, and the experience. Will definitely check out an Eating Europe tour again in the future!

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.

Goooooo book! Just do it! The service is horrible, no one…read morehere likes their job, wait. I'm wrong the security in the room with the mummies like their jobs and the young lady on the upper switching out the listening devices., but it's still worth seeing with your own eyes. The price point is reasonable, it's clean and something you should see with your own eyes.

A must do in Rome. Highly recommend the guided tour. There is so much history that unless you…read moreknow it yourself, you'll miss out on a lot of the details and what made the paintings and sculptures so important to what you see today. The Vatican museum and St Peter's is huge. I was not expecting the size of it. The tour took around 4 hours with lots of steps up and down and around. If you have half a day, go see it.

We booked the "Private Borghese Gallery Tour with Hotel Pick-up and Drop-off" from Eyes of Rome on…read moreOctober 21, before the Omicron variant placed our present trip to Rome very much up in the air. Happily we were able to make it to Rome and to experience this wonderful, personalized tour of what I think is the greatest collection of treasures in Rome on December 26. We were picked up on-time at our hotel by the tour's driver who was well-informed and effective with regard to the current COVID protocols, helping us to ensure we had the appropriate type of mask required and our physical vaccination proof (we had assumed digital versions would suffice, but this is not currently the case in Rome or at least not for the Villa Borghese). Another tour operator probably wouldn't have checked for these items and we would have missed the entire experience. We were dropped off at the Villa Borghese and met immediately by our personal guide, Silvia, who greeted us warmly and immediately started setting the context of what we were about to see with the history of the Aurelian wall, Roman life in the 1600s, and the concept of the "villa suburbana," all of which is quite necessary for a full appreciation of the wonder that is the Galleria Borghese. She explained to us the relation of the Galleria's founder Cardinal Scipione Borghese and his position as the Cardinal Nephew to Pope Paul V, which gave him political power over the Papal States. Silvia told us of the original plan of the gardens and the vivarium, which housed species from all over the world- plants and birds respectively, which was foundational to understanding the art collection to come. For context, I have twice visited the Galleria Borghese in 1996 and 2010, but it was my husband's first visit to the Galleria and, in fact, to Rome. Our tour impressed, entertained, and satiated the curiosity of both of us equally- not an easy feat, for sure. We appreciated that Silvia structured the tour as much as possible as the Galleria was meant to be experienced (unwinding, if philosophically, the changes to the sequence of rooms necessitated by current COVID protocols). Silvia was knowledgeable, personable, funny, and very well-versed in the history of the Borghese family, the Papacy as related to it, and the artists (Bernini, Carvaggio, etc.) and their works featured in the museum. Among the highlights for us: *A very informative but also witty and humorous study comparing the depiction (and by extrapolation the characterization) of Venus painted with Cupid by two artists- Cranachi (il vecchio) and Brescianino, an eye-opening discussion about the differing regional attitudes toward women at the time *Revealing the technique but also the humanity of Caravaggio with a thorough education on the 'Madonna dei Palafrenieri.' Some of why the painting would have been a shocking portrayal of Mary, Jesus, and St. Anne may be obvious, but understanding all the details- Mary's plainly visible underskirt- contemporary of the artist's time, the wrinkled, withered portrayal of St. Anne (the Vatican chapel bearing her name being the intended destination for this work, where it was ultimately rejected), and the still-astounding use of light in darkness was extremely interesting and enriching to our experience *A 360-degree analysis of Bernini's Baroque masterpiece Apollo and Daphne (starting with Silvia ensuring we averted our eyes to view the sculpture first from the right-hand side, as intended by the artist himself prior to the statue being moved) gave us a complete understanding of this work. Viewing the sculpture- which I had seen before but never from the vantage point encouraged by our guide- this way gives the complete story of Daphne's encapsulation into the tree depicted here and Apollo's (non-)reaction. When the delicately carved, paper-thin tree bark was pointed out to us, you could almost feel the heartbeat that Apollo would have felt as his hand grasped it. I appreciated the details of the windswept hair turning into leaves, which also stemmed from her hands, and the roots emanating from her foot, details I had not really fully appreciated before. I would highly recommend Eyes of Rome and specifically our guide Silvia. I cannot enumerate with words how much more I appreciated the Galleria Borghese with her expert and naturally flowing guidance and historical context. We had a fantastic time that we will not soon forget.

Alessandro is a fantastic guide! So knowledgeable and fun. I can't recommend him and and this tour…read morecompany enough for a hypogeum tour of the Colosseum.

What more can I say than that the Vatican Gardens are impressive and among the finest we've visited…read moreanywhere.

The Vatican gardens are another amazing wonder of the VC. They showcase various sculptures,…read morefountains, gifts given to popes and other amazing nooks and crannies with various flora and fauna surrounding it all. We got to view it because we had a tour of the museums that included the gardens. I believe you can only view it by controlled guided tour! Our tour guide took us through describing all the different sculptures and their significance to the Vatican. Many were gifts from heads of state. Others were placed with significance form popes from previous times. There are so many places for the people who live in the Vatican to come and find peace or relax and reflect! There is even a helipad in the back corner so the Pope can hop in and head off to his summer villa. On our tour it was even mentioned that some Popes enjoyed hunting back in the day of different animals that roamed the garden. Awesome...ancient Pope's hunted! Maybe Phil Robinson (aka Duck Dynasty) could come hunt in the garden with uncle Psi and the current Pope! You can get some different perspectives of the different buildings of the vatican from a different vantage point and really appreciate and see a different natural outdoor beauty of the Vatican!

I waited four years to do the Taste of Trionfale and it did not let me down. We tried such a wide…read morebreadth of food it was outstanding and everything was such high quality. The tour was expensive but worth every penny. I especially felt the group size was really appropriate.

As foodies, we had to do a food tour to try and eat as much as we could. This one was done in the…read morePrati neighborhood right outside of the Vatican City by The Roman Food Tour company First stop was for some Roman street food at Trapizzino. Imagine a pizza rolled into a cone and then filled with flavorful toppings. I had the Double Cream which consisted of a blend of Cream and Buffalo Mozzarella in addition to Cantabrico Anchovies. Salty, creamy, and a hint of sweetness from the cream. An explosive flavor combo. Next we stopped at the one and only Bonci Pizzarium. If you watched chef table to see Ann Kim, you might have seen this place. Phenomenal pizza by the slice with creative toppings like purple potatoes or squash with sausage. Next we had some traditional Italian pasta at Osteria Da Fortunata. Some red wine paired with Amatriciana. Well spiced and fresh noodles went down way too easy. We finished with charcuterie and tiramisu at La Nicchia Cafe. Many types of cheeses, bruschetta, balsamic, meats, and olive oils. Rounded out by the best tiramisu I've ever had. ____________

Michelangelo's ceiling frescoes are more massive and emotionally powerful in person than any…read morephotograph can capture. "The Creation of Adam" immediately draws attention, but what becomes even more impressive is the sheer scale of the entire ceiling, where hundreds of figures twist, turn, and float across biblical scenes with minute detail. Then your eyes move toward The Last Judgment behind the altar...darker, more intense. The painting carries a dramatic emotional heaviness that contrasts sharply with the elegance of the ceiling above it. What makes the Sistine Chapel unforgettable it is simultaneously sacred, historic, and deeply moving. Guards periodically remind visitors to remain silent, keep their cameras lowered, and yet the room still buzzes with complete adoration. You leave with a feeling that you walked through one of humanity's greatest masterpieces painted onto a ceiling.

I am soooo thankful I got to see this and experience this in my lifetime…read moreBeing inside the chapel is AMAZING Looking at actual art from THE MICHAEL ANGELO himself is breathtaking, The creation of Adam, The last Judgement ect. Knowing that actual Papal Conclaves takes place here gives you the feeling of excitement and awe So much history, so much to see and take in. I enjoyed every moment of it They ask you not to take any pictures but my Meta Glasses came through for me. The Sistine Chapel is a chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the pope's official residence in Vatican City. Originally known as the Cappella Magna ('Great Chapel'), it takes its name from Pope Sixtus IV, who had it built between 1473 and 1481.