Getting around cities in Europe

[Host Jazzbeau]

Now our greatest adventure using public transportation was in Italy, going from Rome to Tivoli. To get there, its the Metro to a train station in the suburbs, then go find train tickets from a tobacco shop before boarding. That worked easily enough, but we really didn't know where things were once we arrived. We wandered and found Villa Gregoriana and then Villa d'Este...so far, so good! Then we thought we'd get bold and try to visit Villa Adriana, which is a few miles out of town.

 

You have to grab a local bus to get there, and they sell the tickets in a random local pizza shop! Never would have figured that out without help from the TI kiosk. We made a run for tickets as the next bus was imminent, grabbed the bus, toured the villa, then afterwards we had a long wait for the bus home. We wondered if they had quit for the day...

 

But eventually, it did arrive (seemingly not following any kind of schedule) to bring us back to Tivoli. As time ticked away on the slow ride back, we thought we'd be 5 minutes late for the train home. But as luck would have it the train was running 10 minutes behind schedule! So we caught the express train back to Rome, then the Metro home. All for just a few euros per person!

 

When it works, it's great. Always a little bit of adventure though!

 

Wow! We are planning a day out to Tivoli from Rome this spring, and I had initially planned to do it exactly as you describe. But this is to be a quiet day amid several days of non-stop sightseeing in Rome, and I had second thoughts about all these connections (especially since we must be back in Rome for the 5:45 Mass at Santa Maria degli Angeli ). I'm so glad I decided last week to book a tour for this day trip!

[jpalbny]

Wow! We are planning a day out to Tivoli from Rome this spring, and I had initially planned to do it exactly as you describe. But this is to be a quiet day amid several days of non-stop sightseeing in Rome, and I had second thoughts about all these connections (especially since we must be back in Rome for the 5:45 Mass at Santa Maria degli Angeli ). I'm so glad I decided last week to book a tour for this day trip!

 

It's not a relaxing, easy trip with all the connections. But I'm glad we did it, because we could go at our own pace. We didn't have any pressing need to get back to Rome at a specific time, though. So you may be better off with an organized tour.

 

There are major differences in the time that the different trains take to make the journey between Rome and Tivoli. We wanted the express one as the next one was really slow!

 

Enjoy - Tivoli is beautiful. I have pictures posted, but had to take the link out of my signature, as it's too many characters if put all of the links in.