We address the characterization of qubit chains and assess the performances of local measurements compared to those provided by Feynman probes, i.e. nonlocal measurements realized by coupling a single qubit regis- ter to the chain. We show that local measurements are suitable to estimate small values of the coupling and that a Bayesian strategy may be successfully exploited to achieve optimal precision. For larger values of the coupling Bayesian local strategies do not lead to a consistent estimate. In this regime, Feynman probes may be exploited to build a consistent Bayesian estimator that saturates the Cramer-Rao bound, thus providing an effective characterization of the chain. Finally, we show that ultimate bounds to precision, i.e. saturation of the quantum Cramer-Rao bound, may be achieved by a two-step scheme employing Feynman probes followed by local measurements.
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