Vatican Confidential: Behind the Scenes of the Guided Tour Industry
Personally I have rarely been tempted to take guided tours. The times I have were usually accidental; faced with some complicated monument in the depths of India, an ageing guide has approached me and very softly urged me to take a tour at a wonderfully reasonable price. Or perhaps some 10-year old boy has repeatedly insisted on guiding me through the medina, in somewhere like Morocco, with such dogged determination that I have simply agreed because the heat and his poverty have simply worn me down.
These are the sort of guided tours that possess a little travel exoticism. But I recently had a rare insight into the big business industrial tours of Rome, the Vatican and its huge museum.
