nyone who's ever been to an embarrassing recruitment day or dull dinner party will know that it's always wise to have a fun fact about yourself at the ready, and I reckon mine’s pretty good: I've been up and down the Eiffel Tower 100 times.
I earned this away weekend bonding seminar-worthy nugget last year when I spent a few unforgettable months working as a tour guide in Paris. I started on the beginner's monument – “The Tower”, as it’s known in the biz, before going on to haul tourists around the Chateau of Versailles, Notre Dame and the winding streets of Montmartre.
I had pictured myself sauntering around Paris in a beret regaling riveted travellers with tales of the impressionists and Hemingway - the reality turned out to be far less glamorous, much trickier and infinitely more rewarding.
To be a good tour guide (or a passable tour guide, in my case), historical knowledge of your patch is only a small element of what is required.
Here, I’ve enlisted the help of the some of the world’s best guides to reveal exactly what goes into a great guided tour.
You need to be patient. Very patient
Jonny Bealby, founder of Wild Frontiers came in to guiding following a career as a travel writer. Talking to Telegraph Travel, he cited “patience, and lots of it” as the premier quality of a tour guide. Whether it be taking time to explain a complicated historical event, answering questions you’ve already answered multiple times in your speeches, or walking as slow as is humanly possible without actually walking on the spot, while you wait for a group of octogenarian Texans to catch up with you (personal experience) – a guide needs to be comfortable taking things slowly, and to do so with a smile.