Highlights & Hidden Gems With Locals: Best of London Private Tour

We had an amazing three-hour tour with Chris through the City of London. Chris kept us moving (we had just flown in) and brought Roman, Restoration, and modern history alive. The little-known history of London’s guilds was particularly fascinating. We recommend Chris whole heartedly.

Let me start with I find huge value in walking tours and docents. This tour was not what we hoped for, and that’s generous as we were disappointed. The guide was nice enough and knowledge … that said it was a day of facts and useless minutiae while standing in tunnels or in front of statues. We wanted to go into these sights and he used up the entire day such that all the venues were closing. The tour was supposed to be 2-2.5 hours it became 5! We didn’t know you couldn’t enter these sites after 3:30 but I’m sure our guide did. He kept saying you look tired we just need 30 more minutes. I expect he thought he’d get a tip, he didn’t. You might think we should have managed the time better… I expect the tour guide you’ve paid to do this, they are the expert on the location. Clearly it was not a match on any level. My recommendation is take the hop on off bus, take the site tours, and take the free umbrella tours where you tip based on value. We only had the one day. This event was the most disappointing of our month long trip. I cannot recommend this company.

This was one of my favorite things we did on the trip. Our guide was Maria Clara and I really enjoyed our tour with her. First, she was very kind enough to accommodate a time change so we could attend a football game. She was very knowledgeable, and pleasant and taught us so much during our time together. We honestly saw and did so much I really appreciated all the effort she put into it and had a great itinerary and walk planned. One of my favorite things, was that she pointed out on the Millenium Bridge that the gum stuck to the floor had art painted on top of it! We looked down and saw so many different little pictures and that was really fun for me. I really loved our afternoon with her and she was kind enough to give us ample recommendations to pubs, rooftop bars, restaurants and even places in Burrough Market. Thank you Maria Clara!!