Good Guide = Game Changer

Alice in Wonderland, Illustration by Sir John Tenniel

When visiting museums or historic sites, do you enjoy exploring with a guide or prefer to go it alone?

Whilst working as a guide at the National Portrait Gallery in 2010. I read a blog post by Nina Simon on museum tours. In her own words, Nina is 'not typically a fan' however a participatory experience with an exceptional facilitator proved to be a game changer.

Registrar Alli Burness' also prefers the latter, though a collection of intimate experiences with local guides on her recent European adventures have also prompted her to reconsider. Alli's post on Entropic Museum Tours immediately brought to mind an encounter I'd had with a guide almost 10 years ago, in the Summer of 2004.

I was traveling through Europe as a GAP student with a group of girlfriends. The others wanted to make a day trip to tourist-ridden Pisa and take their token photographs leaning against the tilting tower (on a side note - isn't it unsettling when you compare holiday snaps with friends, only to realise you've stood in the same spot or composed practically the same image?) Having been to Pisa with my family some years before, I opted instead to visit a private house and garden just near Florence (the name escapes me now).

Venturing out alone, I took a public bus to the closest town and then slowly climbed the steep dirt road winding uphill past lazing dogs and crumbling villas. Upon arrival at said house and garden, I rang the doorbell, paid my entry fee and was delighted to find I had the entire property to myself - not another backpacker in sight.

As I sat on a bench eating my packed lunch, a gardener pruning hedges across the way put down his tools and struck up a conversation. I spoke very few words of Italian, and he only broken English, but we bumbled on animatedly for the better part of an hour. He went out of his way to show me around the gardens, revealing hidden grottos, smelling flowers, pointing out twisted old trees and gesturing broadly to indicate the vast olive plantation which his father and grandfather had tended before him.

He was driving back to Florence after his shift and kindly offered me a lift. As a teenage young girl on her own, I considered my parents' stern warnings to exercise caution and never accept rides from strangers. Of course I also ignored them, and gratefully accepted.

About half way home, my driver pulled over without warning. Urging me to stay put, he jumped from the car and disappeared through a nearby doorway. News headlines proclaiming my ill-end reeled through my mind and just as I was about to unbuckle my seatbelt and abscond, my guide returned with a granita (frozen orange juice) in each hand, a local treat. "For you Bella - it's very hot today no?" he said grinning. Little did he know I had already frozen myself half to death with fear! We took off again down the hill and wound our way back to Florence via the backstreets, slurping happily.

A few years later, I visited South America and walked the inca trail of Machu Picchu with a local guide. She spoke candidly and openly, unafraid to share her personal opinion on everything from family to politics as well as discussing the benefits and drawbacks of tourism on the area. She knew the forest like the back of her hand and could point out a toucan perched on a branch some 50 meters away.

Time spent exploring historic cultural sites with local (and at times unofficial or spontaneous) guides has afforded me precious personal memories that linger in the crevices of my grey matter where didactic labels and audio tours have long since faded from memory.

Do you have an insightful guide tale? What attributes or approach did they possess that made the experience relevant and meaningful?