Budapest, Istanbul, London, Paris
April 24, 2024
Budapest, Istanbul, London & Paris
I love travelling and when I travel I always go on tours of the place I’m visiting. I either go on small group tours or private tours and have been on some really terrible tours over the years. I’ve also been on many great ones. Here is a collection of tour guides and their companies that I can confidently recommend:
Budapest
Andrea, the owner and guide at Personal Budapest Guide, is a wonderful choice for discovering Budapest. Amsterdam and Budapest are popular start and end points for Rhine River cruises, which is how Andrea and I got to meet. We share many clients who either begin or end their river journey with a tour in our cities and put us in touch with each other. If you’re traveling between these two destinations, starting or ending your trip with a tour by Andrea is a fantastic choice. She’s been guiding since 1995, and with Rick Steves’ endorsement and hundreds of glowing Tripadvisor reviews, you’re in great hands.
Andrea’s private tours are available as walking or minivan options, covering both sides of the city and more—small villages, wine farms, castles, and even caves are all possible stops. Her flexible tours, ranging from half-day to multi-day experiences, can be easily adapted to your interests. Andrea’s warm and relaxed style, combined with her deep knowledge, makes her tours engaging and enjoyable. Guests often describe her tours as the highlight of their time in her city, appreciating how she shares both Budapest’s major sights and hidden gems.
Book early—Andrea’s tours are in high demand, and her wealth of knowledge and approachable manner make her the perfect guide to get to know Budapest’s history, culture, and modern life.
Istanbul
Lee and I went on 3 tours with My Local Guide Istanbul: The Secrets of Istanbul and Istanbul Heritage, with Yunus. Both were excellent, he has such a broad knowledge of the city and its history and was very open to changing the content and route of the tour to suit us, given that were the only 2 people on the second tour. The Secrets tour gave a great overview and orientation of the old town and Yunus answered all our practical questions about tram cards and where to eat. The Heritage was a way of exploring a part of the city that is just not known by tourists. Yunus’s knowledge and comments on the social changes, from refugees to gentrification gave added depth to our understanding of this amazing city and, for us, the newly discovered ancient old Jewish and Greek districts.
The Taste of Turkey on two Continents was given by the owner, Salih and was superb. We started on the European side and had a very pleasant 15-minute boat trip over the Asian side to a part of Istanbul I would never have thought to visit. We wandered through a food market and into specialty shops to try Turkish and Kurdish delicacies, meat, pickles, cheeses, olives. There was no pressure to buy anything but I did and am still enjoying my purchases here in Amsterdam. We had a sit-down meal in a local restaurant with lots of explanation about the food we were eating. We caught a ferry back to the European side for dessert, perfect baklava and ice cream. This was all topped off with an agile/hubbly bubbly and tea and conversation late into the night in a tucked away cafe full of locals doing the same, and the friendliest and most endearing cat in Istanbul.
London
At last, I’ve found a London tour that I can confidently recommend! I went on 2 thoroughly enjoyable tours, both given by Jonnie who owns a tour company called Bowl of Chalk (Cockney rhyming slang for ‘walk’).
Because London is so big, Jonnie has 3 different 3-hour weekend walks that break it into smaller pieces. There are 2 walks on Saturdays, the morning one is from Trafalgar Square to St Paul’s Cathedral. The afternoon walk is from St Pauls to Monument. The sunday tour takes place on the Eastern edge of the City, Old Street/Shoreditch area
The tours gave a great overview and were also packed with interesting details about London’s history. Jonnie’s style is not to lecture but is conversational, like being shown around by an informed, interesting and amusing friend who is attuned to your interests. As a tourist in London, the saturday walks are the best to start with as they cover the more known part of the city. The sunday walk is about the more ‘alternative’ side of London in an area with a lot of street art.
Jonnie started his tours, some 6 years ago, advertising in a local cafe and his first customers were Londoners who he coaxed out to learn more about their own city. He still offers these weekend walks like a ‘pay what you wish’ type of tour. You don’t just turn up at the start and it’s certainly not a big ‘free tour’ type of thing, his group size is usually in the region of 10 people. You do need to book a place on the tour which is done by email on his site. I suggest paying between 20 and 30 pounds per person if you enjoy the tour, which I am certain you will.
Jonnie also offers private tours on weekdays so you get him all to yourself and can tailor the tour to your tastes. These are arranged by e-mail too.
Paris
One of the great things about living in Amsterdam is being so close to Paris! Lee and I love tours and we make a point of trying other tour companies in different cities. We saw a good deal on the TVG train and hopped on board for a day trip to Paris to try out Sight Seeker’s Delight and were indeed delighted.
We chose the 4-hour ‘Paris Along the Seine’ tour and had Steph as our guide. She was fun and amusing and a gave us a huge amount of info that we absolutely loved. There is a maximum of 12 places on this tour but we were the only people on the tour. Steph found out that we love history and detail, and took us on a highly entertaining romp through Paris’s incredibly rich past.
I popped down to Paris again with my significant other and mother-in-law, to try out their Keys to the Louvre tour, a 2-hour highlights tour of the museum. Again we had Steph as our guide and again she was wonderful. She knows her stuff backward and showed us around, picking out interesting pieces and giving us in-depth explanations and anecdotes, all peppered with humor. The tour was a small group tour with 6 people in total, which is their limit on this tour. We went back to the Louvre the next day and spent the entire day there, having had the tour the day before we knew our way around and the place which was a great help.
Next on my list with this company is their Jewish History of Le Marais with Karen, the owner.
