Julia Travel

Did the Segovia/​Avilla tour — while a nice person, the tour guide was disinterested, glued to her iPhone the entire trip, and failed to give anything but a perfunctory history on much of the tour. The worst part though was that the key reason for the tour — the Roman aqueducts of Segovia — were used as a ‘drop off’ point by the guide, with no time spent on their history beyond a two minute spiel on the bus.
Super waste of money. Took a tour a few days earlier to Girona/​Figueres/​Dali Museum that was a 100 times better, in large part because we were handed off to a local guide who knew what she was talking about and was interested in it.

Their tour guides do not speak English well at all!!! And the half day tours are crappy because the bus ride takes most of the «half-​day,» so you get 3 hours on a bus and 1 or 1 ½ hours in the city and on the tour. Thumbs down for half-​days, but a pretty good thumbs up for full days, since they do have nice buses and good places to go. Still, they don’t give you enough free time on half-​day or full day tours and the guides don’t speak English well.

Don’t waste your vacation time on this bus tour. First of all it’s 3 hours long, and yes you feel every minute of it. The tour guide was knowledgeable and friendly but the whole experience is pretty dull. You’re on the bus strolling through neighborhood after neighborhood that all basically look the same. You’ll get to see some historic spots but you won’t stop at any of them. The one place you will stop at to walk around, The Hard Rock Café!!! Are you kidding me? That’s the last place I want to see. What’s the next stop Applebee’s? Anyways the bus is air conditioned and very comfy, which is probably why by the last hour of the tour half of the bus was fast asleep including myself. Do the hop on hop off bus tour instead.

Visited Toledo in May, 2014. All day trip was uneventful, filled with elementary school history version, erroneous description of historical invents and historical figures. Lunch set in a secondary, mass production restaurant set up for a bus delivered visitors (parking lot for busses only). Experience reminiscent of a highway stop restaurant serving popular version of ‘Spanish’ fast food. Trip ended in a factory, or a place staged as a factory, but it was a secondary shop that could not compete with the higher-​end memorabilia stores. Rushed return to Madrid concluded this overpriced entrapment. Never again!

While in Madrid, I took Marqus R. on two tours, one to Toledo for a full day and the other to Segovia & Avila. We met at their terminal before 9am and I must say they offer no services. At one time there may be 6 to 8 tours going out so you really have to listen for your tour. I really enjoy the trip to Segovia, its a beautiful city not to say that Toledo, the first capitol of Spain is not. The buses are clean and modern but than God we both were not plus sizes the seats were perfect for us but we could have used more leg room. One both tours there is a lot of walking because streets where not made for buses over 500 years ago. The rates are fair and if you are a senior you get a discount, On some tours you can buy a lunch for about 8 euros but it’s better to go on your own. We bought one lunch but the service was slow we had to time it with a calender, plus the food was just OK., it was like grazing with a heard of cattle. On the Segovia tour we ate in an excellent restaurant where the food, service and views were just great. Also they take you to one or two tourist traps were you pay double for those souvenirs. All in all I recommend a tour or two, they can go where you cant.

The business office is a rather small near hole in the wall (very few waiting chairs and no bathroom facilities) setup but the service is friendly, knowledgeable and all offerings are at decent competitive rates.
I took two Julia full day tours hitting the likes of Toledo, Segovia and some places in between. The buses used, whether Julia or others, are clean and comfortable. The tour directors are top flight, friendly, knowledgeable, helpful and fluent in both Spanish and English.
The tours are offered with lunch or without lunch. I would suggest you elect not to include the lunches as you can do far better on your own. For lunches, they tend to herd you into what amounts to nothing more than a crowded bus stop packed with other tourists or tour groups having rushed service and far less than quality foods. Indeed, you can do far better food wise in any of the local street bars.
All in all for the price, they aren’t bad but nothing really special or unique.