Rome Tourist Traps

When I went to Rome, it was winter time and since I was new in the area, I didn't realize that my group and I reserved a hotel far from the city. On top of the location of the hotel which was not really a problem for us because we rented a bus, our biggest problem was heating. Although the hotel has a heating system, it was old and it took at least eight hours to heat our room!

The water was also freezing cold and we ended up not showering at night and the next day because the water was still cold!

Unique Suggestions: Make sure to check the age of the hotel, which in Rome, the hotels are all old and ancient. If the hotel is old, make sure to ask if the hotel was recently renovated and have heating system in the room and their plumbing system is updated.

Make sure to ask if their is a heating system and if there is, if it is working. Also, ask if there is cold and hot water.

Believe me, it is freezing cold in the hotel without heating!

Fun Alternatives: We stayed in a hotel passed the Laguas de Papa. Book your hotel close to the city.

While Piazza Navona may be a beautiful place to sit, eat and people watch, you should be advised that the restaurants in Piazza Navona are expensive and the food is not good at all. Don't eat in Piazza Navona instead sit at the fountain or if you have to sit in a patio, order just a coffee, although expensive it is 5euros or less and the coffee is much better than the food.

Fun Alternatives: Instead of eating in Piazza Navona head to Campo di Fiore. It is a quaint, bustling little piazza just across the street from Piazza Navona. The restaurants and food are better and not near as expensive as the restaurants in Piazza Navona.

DON'T DO IT!!! Although the marketing concept is great, in actuality these tours are miserable and a complete waste of your time. There are several companies that provide these open-top city tours, they are all basically the same concept and about the same price. I paid 26 Euros each for two of us, or a total of 52 Euros, for a tour that made 10 stops around the city. At each stop, the bus waits for about 10 minutes. You can jump off for a very quick look around and a few photos, or you can stay off and wait for the next bus. Most people never leave the bus at all because you find out very quickly that the line to get back on can frequently be an hour or more! If you get off at each of the 10 stops with the idea of catching the next bus that will be along in about 30 minutes, you have a surprise coming. You will have to wait in line for the second or third bus before returning to the tour route. Basically, there isn't enough hours in the day to complete the tour if you hop off and hop back on more than a couple of times. While on the bus, it is difficult or impossible to take photos. Our bus had a safety rail right at eye level making it impossible to take a photo unless standing. Taking a clear photo while standing in a moving bus is nearly as impossible. There is a recorded tour narration in at least four languages. But, the recorded narration is seldom in sync with the actual location of the bus. On our tour, the recording malfunctioned and had to be reset. The beginning of the tour started playing over about halfway through the tour and continued to play incorrectly for another 15 minutes until the operator resynced the recording. With all the maintenance down-time during the tour, and the out of sync repeat narration, about a third of our tour had no proper narration at all. Generally, these tours are a nothing but a waste of time and money.

Fun Alternatives: My suggestion, and what we definitely did on every other day we were in Rome, is simply take taxis wherever you wish to go. A taxi across the entire city never cost me more than 12 Euros for the two of us. Short taxi hops, like from one tour bus stop to the next, would only cost 5 or 6 Euros maximum. For the 52 Euros I spent on a miserable 2-hour bus tour, with waits in lines that exceeded the actual tour length, and not having the real chance to actually get off and see everything we wanted, we could have spent the same money and gone to all 10 stops by taxi without waiting in line once for transportation and spent a comfortable amount of sightseeing time at each location. The only thing missing is the recorded narration, which was more annoying than helpful anyway. I bought Rick Steves' "Rome" for 2011 guide book and had more useful information at my fingertips than would be possible with a recording. Also, every taxi driver we met, with one exception (which I describe in another tip), was friendly and helpful. They answered all our questions and were happy to volunteer all the knowledge they had about every place we went.

Conclusion, DO NOT take the hop-on hop-off open-top bus tours. Just take a taxi. You can skip the lines for the busses and have the flexibility to go anywhere you want, whenever you want, for the same price or less than the bus.

If you go down the long road in front of St Peter, direction Catel Sant'Angelo, (via della conciliazione) there is a restaurant called Don chichote was Universal bar) (but you cannot see the name from the street) that is just legal theft. At noon, we had (we were 4) 2 salads, one 1/2 chicken, 1 omelet, some bread, 3 diet cokes and 2 beers. 95€ !!!!! the coke were 6 € each ! and we were eating on the street, no special thing.
It's just a scam !

Fun Alternatives: Just don't stop , go in another small street and eat there.

There are many scammers looking for tourists!

They are everywhere in Rome!

Bring your own umbrella or try it before you pay - yes they can be talked down - do not pay a lot!

A friend bought one & she was disappointed - it was broken BUT we tracked him down & he exchanged it!

The sellers are very pushy but you get that wherever you go, not just Rome!

They are persistant BUT do not give in, they eventually get the hint :)

Cheers!

I am an experienced traveler who utilized ApartmentsApart for an apartment on the Campo dei Fiori. When I arrived I found out that every window looked out onto an airshaft so there was no natural light at all. This was at the end of November so the apartment was dark all of the day. On top of that, it was directly above a disco, so from l9:30 until 02:30 on Friday and Saturday night the apartment shook with music. I have written two letters to the manager protesting that I never would have rented (for $1,ooo a week in off season) if I had been apprised of the no natural light and being above a nightclub. I have not received an answer altho it has been more than a month. It is obvious they do not care about return business. Please avoid this rental office as they are not honest in their advertising of properties, and obviously do not care about client satisfaction.

i ordered an espresso at a cafe just outside the basilica and was charged $7 because i sat at a table. you can avoid this by always standing at the bar to drink the coffee, like everyone else. i was clueless and had to learn the hard way. i think the real price is around 2 euros.

I don't recommend taking photos with the guys dressed as Roman gladiators outside the colleseum. The gladiators hawking photos are rude. One "gladiator" tried to get 10 euro out of me for taking a photo with MY camera. I told him I'd give him 2 euro, more than the 1 euro I thought he deserved, and he started making rude comments about Americans; in front of children none the less. Stay away!! They are worse than the Romany pick pockets that used to be ubiquitous in Rome (no longer due to an unfortunate "clean up"). The colleseum itself is not to be missed.

Unique Suggestions: Do not engage in discussions with the gladiators. If you really want a photo, take one of them from afar or prepare to pay ridiculous prices.

Fun Alternatives: Don't encourage the gladiators by giving them money and maybe they'll stop hounding tourists. This was not a problem 18 years ago (last time I was there). I wonder when they started up?