About Podtours
Your personal sightseeing guide to Europe
Podtours™ started when one of our founders got stuck behind a big Australian backpacker for the whole of a guided tour of Florence. We've got nothing against Australians, and nothing against backpackers - but when you're only five foot four, and they're standing between you and Michelangelo, it's a pain!
Our audio tours liberate you to see the sights in your own
time. You're in control - they've been planned as guided walks in a definite
sequence, but if you want to visit one sight rather than another, or take
things in a different order, you're free to do so. Each tour is divided
into a number of labelled tracks so it's easy to navigate around. There's
no one standing between you and the guide, or between you and what you're
looking at. And if you want to go for a coffee or take abreak for lunch,
you just have to press the pause button.
We don't do hotels. We don't do flights. Instead, we are the experts on the sights. Our tours are all carefully researched before we start writing - history, art, architecture, and anecdotes all have to be checked out. We try to create the right mixture of 'compulsory sights' with the oddball, the touching, or the amusing in the side streets. And we try to do more than just guide you round - we try to help you experience the chivalry of medieval Bruges, the splendour of the Duc of Berry's Bourges, the violence as well as the sublimity of the Medici's and Michelangelo's Florence.
Podtours.co.uk also provides services to the tourism sector. We partner with historic sites, city tourism organisations, and tour operators to offer audio tours and guidebooks that are relevant to their visitors.
The Podtours™ team:
Andrea Kirkby is a journalist and writer who has travelled extensively around Europe - including walking from Le Puy to Santiago de Compostela, a thousand miles in all. A webhead since 1994, her interests include romanesque and gothic architecture, bagpipe playing, and opera - as well as good food and decent beer.
Jacques Combeau has spent his career as a diplomat in posts as varied as Trinidad, Zanzibar, Greece, Morocco, Turkey, and Oman. He speaks French, Spanish, Catalan and English, as well as a little Swahili. A keen hiker and sailor, he also enjoys haggling in souks and playing the organ and harpsichord. And he's the only Frenchman we know to sing calypso.
Mark Parfitt's claim to fame is that
he built some of Hadrian's wall - or rather, helped to rebuild it. He's
also a geologist and if anyone knows what's underneath those beautiful landscapes,
it's him.