The Week In Review: January 7, 2026

What I Learned From A Bad Tour Guide

This week I am in Florence with our daughter Lily, who will spend her spring semester here studying architecture. No better place!

We have traveled to Italy many times, and one of our favorite ways to spend time is with a private guide. The tour guides in Italy (like much of Europe) are all PhD's, passionate about their subject matter, and eager to share their knowledge. The experience is a privilege and a luxury. And on Day One in this beautiful city we had a great overview walking tour with Valentina.

Day Two was quite different! We wanted to tour the famous Duomo. Our "private tour" with a small group was anything but the curated, rich experience we've come to expect. The guide delivered little information about the cathedral, and virtually nothing about the construction of Brunelleschi's masterpiece dome. No mention of the herringbone brick-laying pattern or the technical genius that allowed construction of the largest masonry dome in the world. These were things I remembered from Ross King's fabulous book Brunelleschi's Dome.

But as I watched Day Two's tour guide struggle through the basic logistics of the Cathedral - access, timing, location of facilities - I started thinking about how a great tour guide is not so different from a great real estate broker. Standing in a logjam for 30 minutes pinned to the inside of the Cathedral dome 200 feet above the marble floor below, I reflected...

The experience of a true professional - whether a tour guide or a real estate broker - needs to deliver the following:

• Knowledge! This isn't just information that you can Google or get from Chat. Knowledge provides context and depth; it's inside information that you can't get online.
• Curated! A good tour guide asks questions about the particular interest and knowledge of his/her clients. So too does a good real estate professional - the experience needs to be specific to that client's budget, aesthetic, and background knowledge of the real estate process.
• Local! A true professional is intimate with the local market - schools, neighborhood shops, commuting routes, developments planned for the neighborhood, etc.
• Empathetic! We cannot underestimate our role in guiding and orienting clients - crossing geographic and cultural divides can be an intense experience.
  

So while today's tour was a bust, it reminded me how to bring my "A" game to every time I am touring real estate with a buyer. The truth is that experiencing a BAD tour guide underscored how important a truly good tour guide can be, whether in renaissance Florence or in the real estate market of Washington DC!