Another is that some of the sights aren’t
included on the pass. The Roma pass, for instance doesn’t include the Vatican
and neither include Rome’s airports (FCO and Ciampino).
With this in mind, I decided to book my excursions
online and save money.
And as most of Rome’s tourist
attractions are within walking distance, I wanted to do away with using the
bus.
So I tried to avoid getting either city
passes. What I didn’t realize was that, even outside of Rome Central; the roads
were unpleasant places on which to walk. There was hardly path, dirty, hot in
the day and dodgy after dark. It seemed I had to get a bus pass simply to get to
and from my hotel. As I was stopping a week, I got a regular ATAC bus pass for
myself and children.
This is what I learned about Rome’s ATAC
busses.
The
Truth About Rome’s Busses
I got my bus pass in a bus station in
Ostiense. The booth was empty and I was faced with a derelict ticket machine into
which I had to feed paper Euros. It was horrible. A nearby shopkeeper had to
help me.
In the 10 days that I stopped in Rome,
no one checked our tickets. The bus drivers sit in their glass cocoon and they
seldom speak English. They simply drive and stop when the bell rings.
There are ticket machines on the bus
where you get your tickets stamped, but I have seldom seen anyone use them.
People simply hop on and off the bus.
It is easy to use the ATAC bus and not
pay a penny. No one checks if you have a ticket and no one seems to care.
As my son had lost his passport, we had
to stop longer than the week planned. We got fresh tickets for the extra days we
needed but we needn’t have. No one was there to check our tickets and I’m sure
others do the same.
That said, the ATAC busses run
frequently and the chief terminals have display boards that announce when the
next bus is due. I found this useful.
Still, the busses often were crammed and
sometimes with no air conditioning. Graffiti was scrawled over the terminals
and the officials often couldn’t speak English. It seemed apparent that Rome
considered funding inspectors as worthy as cleaning the graffiti from the
streets.
Lessons
learnt
You may have to use the busses in Rome no
matter what. The roads are busy, dangerous and dodgy in the dark.
The ATAC busses don’t seem to have
inspectors or regulations in force. Rome is littered with graffiti-ridden empty
kiosks and the stations are drab.
Offices close early and there is seldom
anyone to ask for help. It seemed apparent that if a city is littered with
abandoned kiosks, funding is short. Inspectors cost.
Read all my articles on Rome on Rome
a Survival Kit
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| Bus Station in Piazza Venezia |
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| An ATAC Bus Station in Rome |
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| Bus timetable announcement |
