21st - 26th Sept 2008 Rome, Italy - Part 2

Roma Pass

The first thing we did after settling down is to visit the local tourist information counter. There are several types of tourist passes that one could get depending on your personal visiting preferences. From my online research, I’ve come to know about the ‘Roma Pass’. For €20, this pass covers all modes of transport (bus, tram and metro) in Rome for 3 days and also entitles you free entry to the first two museums / galleries and discounts to the following museums, which is a very good deal if you do some proper planning beforehand. The price for a 3-days transport pass costs €11 and then we used the pass for the entrance tickets of Colosseum (€10) and the Borghese Gallery (€8.50). So with that, we already get back the full amount and more. Using the Roma pass for Colosseum is especially good as we can skip the long queue to purchase the entrance ticket and walk straight in.

Public Transport

Rome has an integrated public transport system, so the same Metrebus ticket is valid for all modes of transport. Tickets can be bought from tabacchi, newsstands or from vending machines at main bus stops. Single tickets cost €1 for 75mins, €4 for one day, €11 for 3 days and €16 for a week. You must purchase the tickets before you board and remember to validate the ticket at the orange machine box (on the bus / tram) to avoid hefty fines. The Metropolitana (underground metro train) has 2 lines: A (red) and B (blue), both pass through Roma Termini, with trains running approximately every 5 minutes. However, the transport we used most in Rome is the public bus. The map that we got from the Roma Pass pack does not have the detail bus routes. So we bought a separate bus map (€6) from the tabacchi which later proved to be a worthwhile investment.

There are 2 types of busses running in the city of Rome. One is the normal size bus we see everywhere in the world, the other type is the electric bus, less than half the normal size bus which runs along small narrow alleys in the city. I highly recommend you take a ride in these ‘mini’ busses but make sure you are standing or seated in the front so you could see for yourself the great maneuvering skills by the bus drivers squeezing through the very narrow alleyways fully parked with cars, motorbikes and bicycles.