5/23/2023 0 Comments Day trips from rome![]() Had a guided tour of Florand broke down and spend 3 hours waiting for him to get a two truck and taxĪvoid this tour at all costs! I paid $200 per person. The buck stops with Viatour as this tour is advertised under your banner and it was an absolute disgrace from start to finish. He was also the first to be dropped off home on our return in the taxi, which further confirmed his total disregard as to whether we got back safely or not. I doubt he had national road insurance or perhaps even insurance to cover his vehicle or his passengers. He would not let us speak to them which was a further insult to our intelligence. I suggest he was contracted to be a driver and that he owned the vehicle and it seemed he spent an hour and a half arguing with either Romeatravel or Viator. This is the worst experience I have encountered on many years of travel and will demand a full refund of our fee for the tour. When we said we would not leaved the vehicle so it could be towed away and be left on our own, he was furious and we were probably lucky we could not understand what he said. He lied to us on several occasions when we asked what was happening, but generally ignored us entirely. He refused to listen to us and could not speak English which further exasperated the already bad situation. He was rude, arrogant and had no sense of responsibility for the passengers whose lives he put in danger on several levels. We arrived at our pick up point at 8.45pm with no apology from the driver who clearly does not have a plan B if this should happen and his main priority was his vehicle. A taxi finally arrived at 5.45pm and took us back to Rome. Eventually the vehicle (with us still in it, which I am sure must be illegal) was towed on the back of a towtruck to a car park in the middle of nowhere. We stood on the side of the road for more than 2 hours and still he did not have a solution to the problem. We missed our tour of Pisa and fifteen minutes out of Florence his car broke down again. There were many options available, a replacement car, a rental car, contacting another tour company and ask if they could pick us up after our tour, a taxi back to Florence and we could have caught a train back to Rome, none of which seem to have been considered by him and he assured us the car was right to return to Rome. Our driver had 3-4 hrs to find a solution and did not. I suspect she had been called in as an emergency and did her best, but was sadly lacking. On our 2 hr tour we saw the wonders of Florence, but our guide was less than professional and lacking in knowledge. He arranged for a tour guide to arrive at 12 noon which she did. Our tour was booked for 1pm and this happened at 10.30am. His car broke down and limped into Florence. He did not at any stage introduce himself so I have no idea what his name was. The driver could not speak a word of English and was most unprofessional in that he did not check our names to see if we were entitled to be on the tour. I tried to engage the driver several times to get more information about the area we were driving through and was told "I don't know, just some small insignificant town." Trust me on this one, skip this "tour" and just buy train tickets. ![]() On the way back, there were several places we could have stopped for sunset pictures of the Mediterranean sea and the driver didn't stop until he needed to get fuel. ![]() The other tourists convinced the driver to wait for us to see the grounds and he agreed on an hour. We were driven to Pisa, and were told that there's not much to see there so there's no need to spend more than 5 minutes there. ![]() When we arrived in Florence, the driver pointed in a direction for us to go, but the others on the tour and I had so little information that we didn't get to see everything we wanted to see. Driver or "tour guide" Stephano drove extremely fast and provided very little information. Vehicle was poorly maintained and was very loud. Vehicle was extremely dirty inside and out. I was picked up from my hotel as per the agreement. Save your money and just buy train tickets.
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