Barbara Gilmour

Barbara is terrific and very communicative. We love working with her. She even managed to get us a $25 credit at the hotel AND has them deliver a bottle of champagne and chocolate dipped fruit, cookies and pretzels! Yum!

Like with Florence, she sent many options based on our criteria and a few that stretched our usual taste — which we appreciated. She set up a few excellent experiences, especially the tour of the Jewish ghetto ( which I would highly recommend). She found another dining experience at a chef's home that was totally delightful. I recommend a shopping trip to high-end stores for fun or purchase opportunities. Unfortunately, there was no time to visit Prada, Tiffany's, or Dolce and Gabbana on this trip. As for Rome itself, part of the "charm" is that it is a bit chaotic; now, it has descended into chaos at some places where work is still being done for the Jubilee. Construction work is ongoing at all the tourist spots and St. Peters. They are also building a new subway line and expanding the airport. Roads are closed, making it more challenging to move around by taxi, dramatically increasing prices. I note these parts, so if clients were to go to Rome, I would carefully check the news. Thirty-five million visitors is a lot to contend with, especially for people who call Rome home.

Barbara helped me choose a hotel, and I chose the one where we stayed. Her biggest help was arranging transportation from Florence to Assissi and from Assissi to Rome.

This was our first time working with a professional travel agent, and we lucked out with Barbara. Since this was our fourth time in Italy, we were familiar with most sites and stayed in some nice hotels. We told Barbara what we liked and wanted to have in a hotel and location; WE were given many choices and could select our favorite that met our needs. She also arranged for tours that we could not have done on our own - from a semi-private tour of the Uffizi, restaurants, and the location of Christmas markets. Even when things did not go as planned - the private dinner at a Chef's house in Florence was nonexistent, Barbara could get us a full refund. She always checked in on us to see how everything was going - an example of excellent customer service.