Travellers are a very common human spieces. Their natural habitat is the world but they prefer cheap and off-road climate. They usually travel alone but, once they find a good spot to establish, they tend to reproduce. After years of on-field researchs, we have succeeded to identify different kind of Traveler. 

What kind of traveler are you? 

The compulsive planner: You spend hours and hours on the web trying to get the more information you can about your next destination. You read everything about traditions, culture, food, places to see, prices, health-care system, diseases, night-life, day-life, dress-code; you also attend an intesive language webinar. You prepare a detailed schedule of each day. Every single moment of your next trip has been optimize. You print maps, tickets, reservations, copy of your passport, insurance, interesting articles. Then you discover your flight has been cancelled due to Covid19.

The low-c:ost hunter: Your trip daily budget is slightly below the poverty line. You have subscribed on at least 10 websites whose domains contain the following words: “on a budget”, “less than a dollar”, “without money”. You never book a ticket priced more than 10€; to get from Paris to London once you made a transfer in Sao Paolo, Brasil. Couchsurfing was your mantra, before they make you pay to use it. You stalk your old-university friends profile in order to get where they live now. Your chat is full of unanswered message: <<Hi, how are you? I’m coming to […]>>

The travel addicted: You collect stamp on your passport. Your job is a pause between one travel and another. You look at the calendar and you don’t see anything but bank holiday weekend. You are a solo, you make decision fast and your baggage is light: two pairs of socks, few underpants, one pair of trausers, 2 shirt, one sweater, a jacket. Airports are your home, the only place you feel free in.

The inst-traveler: If a place is not Instagrammable, it’s not worth visit it. You change your outfit several times a day according to the next location: beach, restaurant, dusk, mountain, movida. Once, for a three-day weekend, you took 3 luggage. Filters and lights have no secrets for you. If you don’t post at least 5 stories a day you start panicking. You live your life a fifty likes at a time.

The party guy: Morning does not exist for you. You don’t care about monuments or museums – they are the same all over, you like most bars and clubs, where you can find the real soul of a place. You don’t visit much of a country, the closer you are to the music, the better is. Your diet is made of beer and gin. You eat poorly and little. After a vacation with you, your friends need a recovery week. Do you remember that time in Vietnam, you almost died?

The cultured: Now that we have visited the Musei Capitolini, the Museo dell’Ara Pacis, the Mercati di Traiano, the Museo dei Fori Imperiali, the Museo di Roma at Palazzo Braschi, the Museo Napoleonico, the Museo di Scultura Antica Giovanni Barracco, the Museo Carlo Bilotti, the Museo Pietro Canonica, the Museo delle Mura, can we go for a beer?

The food nazi: You get excited about food only when your grandma cooks. All the rest are shit. Choosing where to eat is a endless seek. You don’t like anything but local food, your local food.

The perfect lover: The best country you have ever visited was the one with the better mobile price plan. Your girl/boyfriend wants to know everything about your trip. You update her every 2 hours, sometimes even before things happen.

We have been waiting until now to take a side on what is happening in Italy – and in the world. We are dealing with an emergency whose reach is not known yet. The situation is changing day by day, so are the government actions. It’s hard to guess. To proclamations and appeals to calm, we have preferred silence. We wanted to avoid adding confusion to an already confused situation, speaking about something we do not know. We are not doctors neither politicians, we walk, tell stories, revive emotions and experiences. The bells are ringing for all, it’s now time to stop, at least for a while, until the emergency will pass over. For the emergency reach is not certain, clear are the consequences (and not only the economic ones). We must now care about everyone’s sake rather than our personal interest. The future benefits will overcome today’s costs. Solidarity has always been a fundamental value to us, something we truly believe in.

We are living an extraordinary moment. We can either choose to give up or take advantage of the situation to move forward. Every cloud has a silver lining. It is during crisis that genius, creativity and resiliency foster change, showing as far as human capacity can go. A new – and more responsible – opening will follow this closing; people will start again to move, travel, stay together, and appreciate the little things our country has to offer. When it’s going to be over, the first thing we will all do will be going out, to walk, together with a friend, parents, or solo, enjoying a sunny day as today. We, Free Walking Tour Italia people, will be there waiting for you, as we have always been.

We will meet again where we now leave.

After a brief stop-over, Free Walking Tour Verona is finally back and completely renewed. The proverb “you need to change to stay the same” probably is the best description of the metamorphosis we have been going through. We had the feeling Free Walking Tour Verona had reach a very important point in the touristic panorama of the city but something was missing out.

We decided therefore to start from the basics and redefine all the aspects of the activity, from the itinerary, to the way of leading the tour, from the marketing aspects to the branding. One of the crucial points has been the introduction of a new guide, fully certified, with a deep knowledge of the city and a big smile on her face.

Strategically important has been also the renewed cooperation with the network Free Walking Tour Italia www.freewalkingtouritalia.com, which supported us in the design of a new and better defined marketing strategy. A lot has to be done, and more surprises are yet to come, but for the moment we are simply happy to welcome again tourists in Verona,  show them this fantastic city in the way we see it, and for them to be able to fully enjoy it!

Seeing is believing, we invite you all to come and join our Free Walking Tour Verona: every week, from Tuesday to Friday at 10.30 am in Piazza Bra (close to the Vittorio Emanuele statue, the man on the horse).

For bookings and more information on the tour, visit: https://freewalkingtouritalia.com/free-tour/free-walking-tour-verona/

Everybody knows the ancient Roman Empire, right?! We are sure at least once you have come across the remains of the ancient Rome somewhere out there. Yet what about the Persian Empire?! Does it sound familiar?!

Have you ever thought about discovering this ancient enchanted Oriental land? Are you afraid of exploring such peaceful country? Is your mind poisoned by the mainstream news about Iran? We would like to suggest you to step outside your comfort zone and ask the people who have already discovered this country… you will hear about amazing food, millennial culture, historical cities, diversity, and, most important thing, beautiful smiling souls waiting for you.

We are glad to introduce you our friends from PersianWalk, whose mission is to show you the true face of Iran. By showing up at their free walking tour in Tehran, you will be enchanted by their stories, cultural hints and local way of life. Their tours are designed in a way the guides provide you lots of practical information on cultural and social life. Their motto is our motto: explore the city like a local. You will better enjoy your journey throughout Iran if you join PersianWalk tour.

Find more information on:

www.persianwalk.com

Dear Traveler in Italy,

We have decided to write you directly because you, more than anyone else, can judge your travel experience in Italy.

Italy is a wonderful place, full of creative people and natural and artistic beauty but it is also the place of contradictions, of unwritten rules and lobbies.

In these days, in the heart of the summer season, when everybody is busy organizing activities and tours to make your stay more than perfect, once again we have to lose time to answer to complaints from certain groups of guides who don’t accept the existence of Free Walking Tours.

In a country in which the tourism business is controlled by older generations, and completely closed to new guides, where tourist companions (i.e. “accompagnatore turistico”) are hired instead of guides, where there is completely no innovation and a huge lack of tour guides, because the government has decided to block the exams to become a guide, the public discussion once again goes back to Free Walking Tour! 
It is like having the house on fire and thinking how to save the grass in the backyard…

For the last time we will list down all the critiques to answer them, but this time, traveller, we would like your feedback because our only worry is that you have a memorable experience in Italy.

• Free Walking Tours don’t pay taxes

Italy is the place in which, without having any knowledge of someone else business, you accuse him publicly of not paying taxes. Some people don’t even try to verify the situation: if, while watching the television it comes to their mind that Free Walking Tours don’t pay taxes, they run to Facebook and start writing misleading information about it.

We would like to remind all these people of two small but important things:

– Legislation gives Free Walking Tour the right to operate in full compliance with the Italian law;
– They expose themselves to the risk of being brought to court because of defamation (i.e. “diffamazione”).

We know that some people were expecting us to reveal our fiscal and administration scheme but we won’t. It is duty of the prosecution to provide the proof in courts. Enjoy the investigation! Once you find out that our balance sheets are completely fine, you will be angry at yourselves for the time lost.

• Free Walking Tours are run by people without the guide certification

Guides running Free Walking Tours MUST have a tour guide certification. Even though we don’t believe that the guide certification is proof of the skills and knowledge of a person, at the moment the Italian legislation requires it, and therefore we will comply with it.
We strongly suggest you to ask your Free Walking Tour guide if they have a guide certification, if not, be aware that (even if the best guide you ever had) for the Italian law he/she is illegal.

With reference to this point, we would like to highlight that Free Walking Tour Italia staff have put and are putting efforts in order to communicate to the entities involved, the correct ways of managing Free Walking Tours. 

Moreover we have to highlight that Italy has many not certified guides operating without any difficulties on the territory who are not affiliated to any Free Walking Tour. Most of these people are very inexperienced and tell travellers wrong information, causing a damage to the image of Italy. Free Walking Tour Italia cooperates daily with local authorities to block these guides. The sad reality is that the Italian legislation doesn’t have the tools to stop these people, they get a couple of fines and they are back on track! Therefore, we beg you please, can we focus the attention on this point instead of Free Walking Tours?!

• The use of the term FREE is misleading for travelers

Free Walking Tour is an international format which is well spread all around the world. The term FREE is misleading only for Italians who are not used to this format, all foreign visitors know very well the format and react accordingly.

Just to be clear, the word FREE is correctly translated in Italian with the word “LIBERO”. Travellers are Free to join the activities, are Free to leave the tour whenever they want and they are Free to donate (if they want) as much as they want.

• Free Walking Tour guides are not professional

It often happens that when offering our service we have been asked “How is it possible that a guide is paid with tips?! You are ruining the image of the professional guide.”. 

If you compare Free Walking Tours and “regular” tours, it appears immediately clear that in order to run a Free Walking Tour and hope to get some money at the end of the day, guides must be much more prepared and skilled: the travellers are different for each tour, coming from every continent, from any social background and with different interests and questions. Professionalism, flexibility and empathy are crucial.
With Free Walking Tours the tourist has the chance to experience the tour and then decide how much it is worth. If the guide didn’t study the itinerary and the content, be sure that at the end of the tour he/she will realize it immediately and will react immediately to improve it.

• Free Walking Tours are unfair competition

In our opinion, what is unfair is to have built a national system which created a lobby of guides (reducing the possibility of new guides to be certified) in order to keep prices high; it is the same thing that has been done with taxi licenses. This is unfair for travellers who (in some cases) can not afford to access a proper tour of the city.
In the free market every professional operator can, and should, decide their own tariff. In comparison to our work, many people have said “It would be impossible to find an architect that work with donation!!”. We are sorry to disappoint you but if an architect is willing to work in the Free Walking Tour way, he is completely free to do it. If the “customer” will be honest enough to recognize his value, he could 
probably earn a lot of money.

Once during a presentation, a guide told us “If you want to run Free Walking Tour ask people to pay €1 but don’t leave to travellers the possibility to decide”. The reality is that people are afraid of the concept of Free Walking Tours because it does not appear controllable from outside. You never know the actual donation until the end of the tour. We won’t change the way it works because Free Walking Tour is not only about money, it is about values such as accessibility to culture and people’s awareness of the value of what they do.

Free Walking Tours are not simply a “cheap” way of visiting a city, it is a way of bringing knowledge and culture to everybody, despite what’s in their bank account, and make people realize that it is right and correct to assign their own value to things (positive or negative). How many times have you eaten in a restaurant and not like the food at all but still had to pay a high bill?!

Are we perfect? Certainly not, but in years of operations, Free Walking Tours around the world have brought smiles and happiness to thousands of people, together with a better understanding of the culture and the history of the cities they were visiting.

For all these reasons, Free Walking Tour Italia and all the Free Walking Tours in Italy will continue their activities. The only reason we would stop is if YOU TRAVELER think that what we do is not worth.

Our dear traveler we would therefore appreciate if you could take 30 seconds of your time and write below your opinion: it is the only real thing that matters to us.

Thanks!

Free Walking Tour Italia Staff

We are glad to know that another Free Tour is rising in Italy, and our family is growing bigger. Indeed, from the 13th April, Bergamo – mostly known for its low-cost-flight airport – will have its own Free Walking Tour. Yes, you got it right! You have to thank – we do – the guys of Same Same Travels association, who have been working on it in the last weeks. They got to know two young local guides, told them about the project; they took up the idea of Free Walking Tour and decided to design one for their own town, Bergamo.

Bergamo is a lovely town – we have been there and can guarantee it to you – that, thanks to her connection and closeness to Milan, has been growing incredibly as touristic destination in the last years. The old city centre, nestled up to a hill, keeps a genuine and slow atmosphere, with its beautiful restored palace, churches and monuments. Many people visiting Italy are now prefering it to the more chaotic and expensive Milan: for its strategical position is the perfect spot to visit Northern Italy – Bergamo is well connected to cities as Verona, Venice, Padua and, of course, Milan.

Bergamo was bound to have its own Free Tour, and now it got it!  

Every Saturday (in english) and Sunday (in italian) you can now join this amazing walk of Bergamo Alta with a local guide that will show you piece of arts and architecture, and tells you about stories, food, anedocts. The tour starts in Piazza Mercato delle Scarpe at 11.00 am, at the exit of the Cable Railway (look for the red pointer on your right). If you come to Bergamo, you can’t miss it. It will be the perfect way to start your journey.

You can find more info on:

Free Walking Tour Italia

Free Walking Tour Bergamo

And remeber: Free Walking Tour makes you happy, it’s a good excercise for your body, you get to know more travelers like you, and, most important thing, it’s Free. You pay what you think is worth for. 

Indeed, Free Walking Tour concept works to make culture more accessible to all. We believe we live in one of the most beautiful place in the world and we like to share it, makes such beauty a universal right everybody should have access to. 

Thanks to the everyday hard work of local young guides we have made Free Walking Tour a cultural reality in Italy. 

Free Walking Tour is dead.

Long Live to Free Walking Tour!

With our best wishes…

The Italian eclectic poet Gabriele D’Annunzio, who saw it from a plane, was the first to coin the expression “Prato dei Miracoli”, for its white marble monuments on the surrounding green lawn. From then on, Piazza del Duomo, its original name, would be known worldwide as Piazza dei Miracoli. Today we will take you into a virtual journey to Pisa’s miracle, one of the most famous and beautiful square worldwide. Let’s go!

As you might notice looking at the city map, the square is not in a central position, but formerly hosts a cemetery area and the site of a first early Christian cathedral. The first monument we are going to meet is the Cathedral. Built between 1064 and 1118, it is a marvelous example of Pisan Romanesque architecture. The church, dedicated to Santa Maria Assunta, is located in the center of Piazza dei Miracoli, with the Baptistery in front and behind the Bell Tower. If we focus on the construction, we can find many influences by classical, late antique, Lombard-Emilian, Byzantine, Arab styles.

Indeed, though the Cathedral has a Latin cross plan, the ellipsoidal dome inspires to Islamic style. The façade, by Rainaldo, is made up of pillars and round arches on four floors above the three doors. San Ranieri’s door, entrance to the Church, is studded with 24 bronze tiles, real masterpieces by Bonanno Pisano, depicting prophets and stories from the New Testament.

The dome is decorated with 17th century frescoes and stands on very high arches of Islamic architecture inspiration. Works of art are not left to imagination: the paintings by Andrea del Sarto, the “Madonna under the organs”, the Absidale Mosaic representing the Christ Pantocrator flanked by the Virgin Mary and San Giovanni Evangelista, the extraordinary pulpit by Giovanni Pisano, recomposed and rebuilt after the fire of 1595.

Getting out from the Cathedral, in front of you, the Baptistery of Pisa, the largest in Italy, proudly stands. Its construction began in 1152 under the direction of Diotisalvi and saw the participation of many artists, including Nicola and Giovanni Pisano. Above the main dome there is another small dome that raises the bronze statue of Giovanni Battista.

We continue our journey and head to the Camposanto, which borders Piazza dei Miracoli to the north. The ancient cemetery is enclosed by a rectangular-plan gallery, covered in marble. Part of the land was brought from Golgotha, after the participation of Pisa in the third crusade of 1203. It is used as a museum, preserves beautiful works of art including sarcophagi and frescoes. The building and the works that were preserved suffered great damage during the bombings of 1944, the long restoration work that followed led to the recovery of some precious works of art, among which the sinopias now preserved in the Museum of Sinopie.

Last but not least, perhaps the most famous monument of Pisa, its symbol, the Bell Tower or the Leaning Tower. Inaugurated in August 1173, the Tower is the work of Bonanno Pisano and Guglielmo, the sculptor of the original pulpit of the Cathedral. The Tower, is constituted by 6 orders of arcades practicable, superimposed on the ground floor of a base with blind arches, designed according to the structure of the bell towers of Ravenna. It seems that the Tower, under construction at the third frame, due to the collapse of the soil of an unsuitable nature to bear heavy weights, tilted. The builders, worried about the slope, decided then to suspend the works, resumed a century later from Giovanni di Simone, who used all his skills to lighten the weight of the hanging part and modify its inclination proceeding upwards. Much later Tommaso di Andrea Pisano, in 1350, added the belfry. 

So, after this little journey, you have now no more excuses to postpone your coming. Pisa is waiting you to be discover!

It always comes that period of the year we have to make presents. We call it Christmas. Now, don’t panic, there are still few days ahead… YET WE FEEL IT’S ON THE CORNER, CLOSER AND CLOSER!!! It chases us. And we have no idea what to get yet. We know we will linger until the last moment. It has always been so; why should it be different this year?! We will buy the same old item of uncertain usefulness: the umpteenth mobile phone or appliance, perhaps socks (who doesn’t need socks?!) that will immediately end in the most remote corner of the wardrobe, together with the other “undesired gifts”. We could give a book, but we did it the last year. Buying item is always a risk: if she or he doesn’t like it?

If we pick a gift only on the base of its material value, we miss its most important trait: the relationship, the capacity of a gift to connect us. This year let’s make a different present, stop buying things, support culture, give a guide! A guide will bring you together as you hadn’t since, make you live an intense moment, take you anywhere you want to go, make you learn, experience, discover something more about the place you stay or about yourself. A walking tour is eco-friendly, it’s not bulky, and it vanishes as you use it, though something of it will forever last.

This year don’t give Socks, give a Guide!

Choose Culture, choose Free Walking Tour Italia!

It was about the eve of 2017, when we first gave a chance to this project. We had run Free Walking Tour for a while in our town, and suddenly we came up with the idea of creating something bigger, something in Italy had not even been conceivable… till then. The first number we dialed was a local guy one’s in Bari. His team run Free Walking Tour there too. We said: let’s try! <<Hello?>> <<Am I speaking with Free Walking Tour Bari?!>> <<Yes!>> <<Here is Free Walking Tour Italia. We want to create an italian network of Free Walking Tour, what do you think about?>> Months later, we spoke about that call. Giuseppe, the Bari guy, remembers it very well: <<I hung up the phone and I told to myself “Who the hell are those guys? Are they crazy? They want to create a Free Walking Tour network in Italy?!”>>. He was already in. And many others did so, till the point people started to call us to join. During our last national meeting, held in Bari at the beginning of September – with people coming from Catania, Cagliari, Verona, Modena, Pisa, Bologna, Barletta and Bari of course – we finally presented the new website we had been working hardly on in the last months. Now it’s online www.freewalkingtouritalia.com! Now we are ready to write another chapter of this beatiful love story. Because Free Walking Tou is all about love, passion, and sharing. 

We chose a piece of puzzle as our Logo to symbolize the uniqueness of each of us – the local realities that make the network – and our leaning to totality: the community exists only if we match, we link, we feel each other. That’s how we complete the picture. And this picture is now call Free Walking Tour Italia. 

Let’s toast to a new beginning!

Long Live the Free Walking Tour Italia!

Are part of the network:

Free Walking Tour Modena, Free Walking Tour Bologna, Free Walking Bo, Free Walking Tour Pisa, Free Wallking Tour Bari, Free Tour Catania, Free Walking Tour Palermo, Free Walking Tour Lecce, Free Walking Tour Napoli, Free Walking Tour Scicli, Free Walking Tour Castellamare del Golfo, Free Bike Tour Gaeta, Free Tour Cagliari, Free Tour Florence, Free Walking Tour Torino, Free Walk in Venice, Milan Free Tour, Free Walking Tour Barletta, Guide Invisibili SoundWalk, Free Walking Tour Verona

Check and spread our Manifesto, for a new deal…

Sign up and join our next Free Walking Tour!!!