Is there a Hop on/Hop off bus in Rome?

[Beth and Bailey]

We plan to fly into Rome 2 days prior to cruise in Oct 2023.  I've been a few times before and have taken tours.  But going with friends who've not been and I thought this may be a good way to see a lot in a shorter period of time.

[euro cruiser]

Pre-Covid there were at least five different HOHO buses in Rome, I don't know how many survived.

 

I don't think the HOHO bus, any of them, will achieve your objective in Rome because they simply can't get near many of the key sites.  The places people know about and generally want to visit in Rome are all so close to one another that you can see them on foot in a day or two.  

 

The two "major" sites farthest away from one another are the Vatican Museums and the Colosseum, on foot the entrances to each are two and a half miles apart.  If you stay roughly in the middle, which is the heart of historic Rome (Pantheon/Piazza Navona/Campo Dei Fiori area), you can get to any of the major sites on foot in less than thirty minutes.

 

For that matter, for less than half of what you'd spend on four HOHO bus tickets you can take taxis back and forth a couple of times a day.

Edited April 7, 2022 by euro cruiser

[frantic36]

2 hours ago, euro cruiser said:

I don't think the HOHO bus, any of them, will achieve your objective in Rome because they simply can't get near many of the key sites.  The places people know about and generally want to visit in Rome are all so close to one another that you can see them on foot in a day or two.  

 

+1. When the question is asked on Rome Trip Advisor forum the consensus amongst regulars is don't bother as the big HoHo buses can't get close enough and struggle in the heavy traffic. I have used HoHo in Barcelona and it works well but in Rome I walk or use taxis. 

 

I have heard mention golf cart tours as an option that is recommended.

[-Lew-]

4 minutes ago, frantic36 said:

I have heard mention golf cart tours as an option that is recommended.

 

We did a golf cart tour with My Best Tour a few years ago...excellent!!

[dabear]

We've taken regular tours & on our last visit we also decided to just take a hoho tour bus.It wasn't very good . As others said the bus doesn't get very close to the sites & was slow in traffic. It wasn't as good as they were in other cities. We don't recommend them.

[euro cruiser]

In general I've found that HOHO buses work better in newer, more spread out cities like New York or Barcelona, with wider streets and avenues, than in older places like Rome.

[John Bull]

I'm a great fan of ho-ho buses - an economic, informative and restful way of getting an oversight of a city.

Brilliant in London, in Boston Ma., in Buenos Aires, in Berlin (only if you have plenty of time, not on a day-trip from Warnemunde)), in Budapest, in Lisbon, and in a dozen other cities around the world.

 

But, as per other posts, awful - truly awful - in Rome.

The main problem is that the ho-ho's  can't even get near many of sights like the Trevi or the Pantheon. Same with places like Bath (England) and Florence, where they can only circulate around the historic city centres that they're unable to enter.

But in Rome the operators don't even make the best of what they have - buses sit for an inordinately long time at Termini station waiting to fill with tourists coming out of the station. Same again at the Vatican where,  rather than drop passengers to do their own thing in their own time and return to the stop to take the next bus,  they'll sit around the corner for about 15 minutes.

And on every bus ( 4 or 5 ) that we used, it was hit & miss whether the panels and earphones for the commentary worked, most of them didn't.

Altogether a big 👎 for Rome's ho-hos.

 

If you're there for an evening, a night tour bus (not hop-on) is well worth considering.

A decent overview, and involves a few stops where you're walked to places like Trevi

 

JB 🙂

[slidergirl]

The only time the Ho-Ho bus was worth it was when I was feeling a little under the weather.  I wanted to be out in the air and sun so I did a Ho-Ho.  Never got off, just rode it around Rome.  Looking at the lines to get on the bus at Vatican City, it surely did not seem like a way to do a quick tour around.  

I did the same my first time in Paris - I was feeling bad again, took the bus.  

[ellenw]

On 4/7/2022 at 6:59 PM, -Lew- said:

 

We did a golf cart tour with My Best Tour a few years ago...excellent!!

This sounds wonderful! I haven't stumbled upon this in any of my research.  Thank you so much.

[little britain]

My tried and trusted instant guide to Rome:

 

Get on HoHo at the station: complete almost the full circuit but get off at stop nearest Spanish Steps; walk down to Trevi fountain, across to Pantheon, lunch in Piazza Navona, walk to Tiber stopping for gelato. Pick up the HoHo again and return to the station. 

 

So you walk the best bits and see the Colosseum and the VE from the heights of the bus which is the best way to appreciate them.