As part of our recent 3 day Travel plan in Rome, we tried to optimize everything in our plan so that we do not lose money. One of the things that we debated heavily is about buying the Roma Pass that give you few benefits….but, we realized it is not worth it as we get locked into somethings and major attractions in our travel plan were covered in 2 days in Rome.
We stayed close to vatican like walking distance and then took the 48 hour pass for 12.50 Euro and it worked out very well for us. Check http://romaflex.atac.roma.it/
The advantage of this plan is that you can move around anywhere in Rome for much cheaper price and then buy Entrance tickets for Colosseum for 12 Euro, which will be still cheaper as Roma Pass is 28 Euro. Now with the option we took, it will be 12+12.5 = 24.5 Euro.
Where to buy the Rome Travel 48 Hr Pass :
You can buy it at any ticketing vending machine or new stands, book stalls, some Caffes as well. Do not hesitate to ask for it in any shop. We bought it at a book / magazine stall next to our apartment that we rented for 3 days in Airbnb.
Once you have the 48 hour pass, you can just use it in any Bus, train or metro station, including Trams. All you need to do is validate it once you enter the bus for the first time. There is a small machine in the Buses or at train stations that lets you validate it. It will print the time when your 48 hours will start. One key thing is that you have to insert i the direction that has hole in the card and Big Arrow Facing you, so that the machine can print in space. We had hard time with the ticket as it does not have proper arrow on what side to insert.
When you are at the metro as well, you will need to insert the card on the hole side and it will take in and open the door.
Download the here we go app and Google Maps offline and print Bus Map :
- Download the offline Google map and print the Bus Map of Rome
- All you need to know is the street you are going to and then look for that in the bus route. You will not have specific stop names on the bus name tag at station, so look for the street name and it will say fermes , which means stops on that street. it will say 3 or 4 fermes depending on the length of the street. So, do not exactly look for the stop name, but the street name
- The metros are another better option for you to move around using the same card. But, there are less metros as the Rome is very archeological site and they could not build more by destroying historical monuments.
How did you get around in Rome ?