Everything went smoothly thanks to both Context communication and Alessanda’s exceptional knowledge. Her warm personality made us feel almost like friends from the start. She remembered all our special requests, and she answered our questions with patience, insights, and gentle humor. All four of us left feeling that we couldn’t have made a better investment of time or money.

Rita gave us an excellent introduction to Sienna and covered all but one of the highlights I had listed based on my research before the trip. Her obvious pride in and enthusiasm for her town came through as she provided the historical context for what we were seeing. She was especially good at helping us read some of the complex art works, like the Allegory of Good Government, where she pointed out many details that we might have overlooked that increased our admiration of the works. If there was any criticism it was that the timing could have been a little better. In the end we ran a little long and were too tired to appreciate the last few details in the Cathedral even though we still wanted to see them. I think that was the result that we and Rita were enjoying our conversations so much but our ability to absorb seems to end pretty promptly at three hours. We especially appreciated the way she worked with the driver we had arranged through Context so that we were able to change our departure time when we realized how tired we had become. By the way, I wanted to compliment our driver who took some scenic side trips (with our concurrence) on the way over when he realized he would be arriving early. On the way back he even offered us a slight detour to see a site in Florence. We declined, because we had already seen it, but it was very thoughtful of him to offer.

Another fabulous guide! Stella is just great and fun! She is very much enthusiastic about her city’s wonderful heritage, unique neighbourhood competition in the Palio, amazing new 12th crypt just discovered under cathedral. Excellent again!

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