Travel tips/insights to southern Italy (Sicily, Naples, Rome)
Rome is obviously great to see, but I felt Florence was the best to just be in
Rome was like a regular ol city with some amazing historical sites just nestled in
Florence was like Barcelona for me - just wall to wall vibrancy /architecture - food
But riding Vespas in Rome is one of the most exciting things I’ve done with clothes on
;also rode Vespas along Appia Antica to the Sea - that was cool)
Is it book able by day or have to do multiple days? Rough cost?
We did four hours the first day for the tour of the Vatican Museum/Vatican City. That was €350, cash, and the price of the tickets to the museum. We had to send her our credit card information so she could book the tickets for us because of some rule about tickets being bought outside of Italy. I do not remember what they cost, but I don't think it was very much. And for context, our group was five, me, my wife, and our three kids (9, 12, 14). I do not know if the price varies on group size. I can tell you that the guide has able to sweet talk some guides into letting take some shortcuts that others weren't necessarily getting.
The second day we did the city of Rome. It was six hours for €490, cash, and the van was €275 for five hours. The van could hold six people comfortably, plus the guide and driver. We were there July 4 and 5, and it was pretty hot. The A/C on the van was great. We saw a lot of people renting golf carts, which saves the steps, but doesn't give the cooling. No idea how much those cost. So, we saw the Forum, Capitoline Hill, Trevi Fountain, The Spanish Steps, the place where Julius Caesar was killed, the Pantheon, had time for a lunch, and a couple of other smaller places of interest. You really get to design the tour. Just let them know what you want to see. We went back the next day to tour the Coliseum on our own. Much like Vatican Museum, I'm sure you can hire them for that, too. For this day we bought €18 Forum tickets ourselves, and the guide bought the €4 Pantheon tickets, which we reimbursed her for in addition to the tour. We had to buy separate Coliseum tickets for the next day for €24. If you time it correctly, you can use this ticket to get into the Forum grounds, too. The Coliseum ticket is a timed entry and then you have 24 hours access from then to enter the Forum grounds.
We also went to Madrid and Barcelona on this trip. Barcelona we picked out sites and saw some cool things and had a lot of fun, but I left still not knowing much about the city. For Madrid, we did a "Free Tour" after a local friend of ours recommended it. Free Tour is a pay what you think its worth app. The guide we had seemed good, but she could have been totally lying to us and we wouldn't have known. But we did leave feeling like we knew more about what we visited. I'm glad we did the tour and I will do a tour guide if/when we go back to Barcelona.