Catania: Tour a piedi privato con un local

This tour od Catania with a local is a geat concept that we really liked but the realisation was rather poor especially for the amount of money that we have paid. Our guide Claudia seemed more intrested in having a casual conversation with us than to talk about the city, culture and some traditions that we were intrested to hear about and made it clear before the tour. She showed us some nice buildings and explained why they are important. She also gave her best to give us a real feeling of the town by taking us to the main fish market and suggesting some traditional sweets that were great. One thing that pretty much bothered us was her asking us where we wanted to go next after us telling her that it was our first time in the city and we have no idea what there even was to see. She knows a lot about food traditions and she suggested some great places and dishes that we should try and also took us for a special Catanian drink that was amazing and refreshing. Not great but not terrible

This was our second tour with Lokafy (after a tour through Lyon earlier in 2019). The overall experience is quite disappointing, not because the guides are unfriendly, but I believe the concept of Lokafy is flawed. Lokafy connects you with locals that guide you through the city they live in. Great idea, BUT most locals do not know much about the culture, history and restaurants/bars in their city because they work and are no tourists. The guides we had knew a lot of (not so important) details, such as where are the closest supermarkets, but couldn't explain or point to historical buildings or tell the story of a particular landmark. Both tours ended up as a quite meaningless walk through the city where you do not learn or retain much [just walk around and look at buildings]. At a cost point of $50+, I would not recommend it. Go rather with a traditional tour guide...

Valentina guided us for three hours through Catania's inner city. The positive was that she took us to the important points such as the domo square, the castle and the monastery. But her information was unfortunately unclear and messy. She gave an engaged impression but her English was a bit difficult to understand and we did not feel we learnt enything form the tour.

It was an excellent experience all round. I normally like a quick guide on the first day to get properly orientated and see what I would like to return and explore in more detail. This option was great because we could choose when it would start, how long we wanted and it was reasonably priced when most other private tours are v costly unless you are a big group. We had a real local person and in our case Antonella was superb - she went way beyond what we expected - we received an email before the tour date asking if there was anything speicific, we sped round the city centre in 2 hours, she pointed out places of interest incl food choices, she was so helpful in so many ways and it was a great warm welcome. It isnt a type of tour which is heavy on history, dates & info but it did exactly what I wanted which was get a feel for the city to explore more later.