When traveling, it’s useful to have guide books, but sometimes you just want a person to take you around and show you what’s great about the place you’re in.
My husband and I did a few days in Venice and Milan, Italy, and took several kinds of guided tours. I will be reviewing them in the next series of blog posts.
Disclosure: The comments and opinions are my own and I will let you know if I received any discounts on the tours. No compensation was received for my reviews.
In Milan, we took a private guided tour from Tours by Locals:
The tour we chose was: Leonardo da Vinci: Maturity in Milan by Barbara Q.
Why this tour:
I had wanted to see The Last Supper painting by Leonardo, and learn about other activities of Leonardo when he lived in Milan. Tours By Locals is a growing company that links tour guides and travelers. They provide the platform for travelers to search for guides in a particular place or by a particular topic, then book and pay for their tours. They also provide the platform for local guides to market their services. The company vets all local guides, ensuring they have the required credentials for the tours they offer. They provide some training in how to conduct tours in the “Tours By Locals” way. Guides create their own tours and post them to the site.
From their website: Our mission is to provide high quality private tours everywhere people travel. We work every day towards that goal. Tours By Locals provides private tours for travelers through our carefully selected network of local tour guides, each of whom is keen to share their knowledge, experience and expertise. We are the ‘merchant of record’ for each tour sold and handle marketing, booking and payment processing, customer service and payments. 2421 guides in 154 countries.
How I chose it:
The Tours by Locals website is easy to navigate. I searched within the city of Milan and could see all the guides that have tours on this site. You can communicate with the guide personally, and get questions answered pretty easily.
In reading the bios of the various guides, several included The Last Supper viewing (you need advance timed-entry tickets to see it), but it seemed that Barbara Q.was the right guide for us, showing highlights of Leonardo’s life in Milan that others didn’t have. She arranged for the timed entry tickets to the Last Supper painting as part of the tour, but other museum and gallery admissions had to be paid by us on the tour.
Cost: $390 USD. This is per tour, not per person. The tour lasted just over four hours. We tipped our guide 10 Euros at the end of the tour.
What was good about it:
Barbara is an excellent guide. Trained as an art historian, she has a wonderful depth of knowledge about art and Milan. She arranged the tour with the timing of the viewing of The Last Supper and worked the rest of the sites around that. We got a good overview of Leonardo’s life in Milan. Seeing the garden where Leonardo had a small vineyard was fascinating. A highlight for me (along with seeing The Last Supper) was getting to see pages from Leonardo’s notebooks at the Ambrosiana Art Gallery and Library (Pinacoteca Ambrosiana). At the end of our tour she walked us back to the central downtown area and gave us good restaurant suggestions.
What was not good about it:
This tour covers a lot of territory, with some backtracking, but this was due to the reservation time for The Last Supper. I would have liked more time to view the pages from Leonardo’s notebooks, because it was close to closing when we got to the Ambrosiana Gallery.
Good To Know:
Tours by Locals is a good way to reserve a private guide for a tour of your choice. Guides create their own tours so they can showcase their passion and their education.
Read the reviews and the tour descriptions carefully to find the best fit for your touring needs and interests.
These tours may be more expensive, (guides set their own prices), so be prepared. You will pay in advance for your tour, through the Tours By Locals website, which helps in planning and budgeting.
I would definitely recommend Barbara Q for your walking tour in Milan, especially if you want to see The Last Supper Painting and other Leonardo da Vinci sites. She is an excellent guide for history and art.
