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    What a Life Tours

    4.7 (41 reviews)
    Closed • 7:00 am - 5:00 pm
    Updated 1 month ago

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    Vatican City, What a Life Tours
    Bruce K.

    It is absolutely possible to do a self-directed tour of Vatican City but understand that you'll miss out on so many little details and behind-the-scenes things. I booked my What a Life tour and arrived right on time (sorry, folks!) and we were on our way. A decent-sized group of ten with our guide. We spent right about three hours. All sorts of interesting statues, hallways, mosaic floors and of course, the Sistine Chapel. Along the way, our guide made sure to point out stuff that I would totally have missed. I'm really happy to have done this tour! [Review 19118 overall - 290 in Italy - 88 of 2023.]

    St. Peter's Basilica with Esmerelda :)

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    4 years ago

    well organized, tour guide knowledgeable, pleasant experience made even better by skipping the line - no other way to do.

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    Page 1 of 2

    What a Life Tours Reviews in Other Languages

    Review Highlights - What a Life Tours

    “Only about 15 people in the Sistine Chapel, and we stayed for at least 20 minutes, practically by ourselves.”

    Mentioned in 16 reviews

    Read more highlights

    Real Rome Tours

    Real Rome Tours

    4.5(50 reviews)
    0.2 km•Prati

    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.

    Eyes of Rome

    Eyes of Rome

    4.8(26 reviews)
    0.5 km•Prati

    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.

    Photos
    Eyes of Rome
    Eyes of Rome - Arco di Settimio Severo in the Roman Forum

    Arco di Settimio Severo in the Roman Forum

    Eyes of Rome - Marforio outside the Capitoline Museums in Rome

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    Marforio outside the Capitoline Museums in Rome

    Rome Free Walking Tour - Us at the Trevi Fountain

    Rome Free Walking Tour

    5.0(2 reviews)
    2.4 km•Centro 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

    Walks of Italy - Basilica San Marco.

    Walks of Italy

    3.8(93 reviews)
    2.6 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

    LivTours - St. Peter's Basilica

    LivTours

    4.4(65 reviews)
    1.9 km•Centro Storico

    The Mr. and I recently had the privilege of touring the Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel, and St…read more Peter's Basilica with Massimo and two other couples, in an early morning semi private tour. Massimo is exactly the kind of guide you want when taking on a site of such immense history and significance. There is simply no way to see and fully absorb everything the Vatican Museums have to offer, which makes having an experienced guide invaluable. With more than 30 years of experience, Massimo brought the history, art, and stories to life in a way we never could have experienced on our own - and he did it all with wit and charm. He seemed to know every guard and all the other guides, which seem to give us an edge at times, especially in crowded spaces. Thanks to Massimo, our visit to the Vatican was one of the highlights of our trip to Rome! His knowledge and guidance made the experience even more special. HIGHLY recommended!

    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

    Photos
    LivTours
    LivTours - Beautiful

    Beautiful

    LivTours

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    What a Life Tours - walkingtours - Updated October 2026

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