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 | Rome Tourist Traps | Tips 1 - 10 of 309 |  |
Popular Tourist Traps | Miscellaneous Tourist Traps Tips | All Tips (309)  | |  |  | Too expensive, arrogant and rude | Tip Rating:   |  |  | |  |
First evening, after I paid 88,00 euros for a simple dinner, my weiter told me, "food is expensive here but the cloths is cheap". Let me tell you what cost me so much in a simple trattoria; grilled meat for two, gnocchi with cheese for one, half liter of red wine, bottle of water and one caffee. I'll be polite and say, it was a robbery.
Day after day, four in a row, we went in a different restaurants and the food was too expensive and not good at all. The last day of our staying we had a simple lunch in one restaurant nearby Piazza della Spagna; seafood salate for two, glass of white wine for each and one coffee and the price was 47,00 euros. Just amazing!
When travelling around, especially in Italy, I like to have good food and service. More or less I never look at the price list because complete lunch with drink and coffee, in whole of Italy, costs between 20-40 euros, with exeption of top class restaurants. Restaurants in Lombardy are more expensive than those in Veneto, restaurants in Veneto are more expensive than those in Emilia Romagna or Tuscany, so those in southern part of the country should be even less expensive. Rome, however, has the most expensive restaurants in Italy which offers food of law quality.
Most of the tourists avoid restaurants eating sandwiches out on the streets or ordering one pizza for two when in restaurants. Leave a Comment
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| | | | The Princess And The €5 Note | Tip Rating: | | | | |
I have seen many children including my great-niece and great-nephews running toward this woman while shrieking with joy, “Principessa, principessa!”
Well, this principessa (princess) or regina (queen) or whoever she was, and her companions the gladiators who stood in front of the Pantheon, all of them were not very regale or generous in their manners. Instead of giving the children a hug back, or even just a slight pat on the head, they immediately pushed them away.
My great-nephew came back, crestfallen, “They said I need to pay €5 for a hug.”
That’s very, very sad. Leave a Comment
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| | | | Worth Its Weight in Gold? | Tip Rating: | | | | |
Almost everybody who has visited Italy or who is going to visit Italy talks passionately about gelato. In their mind, gelato is the utmost Italian thing. By listening to them, I was under the impression that the best thing about Italy is not Dante Alighieri the father of literature or Giuseppe Garibaldi who united the nation, not Sistine Chapel, David, or The Last Supper, and certainly not the multi shapes and sizes of pasta. Ask anyone who has been to Italy what his or her best memory of Italy, and the answer would likely to be gelato.
Well, I just happen to be one of the few people who do not care much for gelato so you are not going to find in this tip the location of the best gelateria. Of course, I could ask around or cull information from the Internet and guidebooks and tell you about it, but then what I write would not be from my experience, and that would not be honest, would it?
Therefore, all I am going to tell you here is watch out for the price of gelato.
The gelato everywhere in the country is made with the same ingredients, but according to the gelaterie owners in Rome centro storico, their products are so much more supreme than the same thing across the Tiber or in another town. To prove it, they price their product five times higher than shops in lesser-visited areas do.
The average price of a small cup is € 1.20. In Rome centro storico, I have seen the same cup sold for € 5.50. Imagine a family of five -- Mom, Dad, and their three children -- who all want gelato after meals. The children, of course, want large cups. I don’t know about you, but I would rethink my priority when the bill for gelato is € 70 a day.
To recap: Love gelato if you must, but ask for the price before purchase or make sure you have a pre-approved bank loan reserved for this particular indulgence. Leave a Comment
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| | | | The Lure And Trap Of Summer | Tip Rating: | | | | |
If Rome is the world's eternal city, then Lido di Ostia is Rome's eternal water. The tie between the beach town and the capital city exists not only because they belong to the same comune, but also because they both share an ancient ruin and a not-so-ancient tradition.
Since the 1920s, generations of Romans have been flocking to Ostia on long holiday weekends and during the summer to escape the city heat. The short trips promised freedom and new romantic adventures to the younger crowd while offering the older generation an easy way to attain their summer idea of la dolce vita. In spite of the polluted water and the unpleasant black sand, Ostia has served as the getaway destination for city folks who could not afford to leave town to exotic locales.
With the growing population of Romans moving to the suburb and a fast rail connection from the city, the modern Ostia is packed all four seasons. The large Cineland complex in Ostia Lido Nord holds a 14-screen movie theatre, a bowling alley, an arcade, and a discoteca, plus restaurants and shops to provide enough attractions for throngs of local youth. In the evening, pedestrians jam the sidewalks and long lines of cars with rolled-down windows and blaring music slowly cruise Via delle Baleniere. That's the seaside's version of passeggiata.
Lido di Ostia is the Mediterranean answer to Rimini. Regrettably, it's also like Rimini in that it is not pretty and it will never be. Leave a Comment
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| | | | Free Tours - Not a Tourist Trap! | Tip Rating: | | | | |
Many tourists in Rome are approached by someone offering them a free tour. The vast majority think it must be a scam and quickly run the other way. I know because I was a guide in Rome for 4 years and got rejected by many people. Here's the truth -these tours really are totally free. The reason they do it is that at the end they will give you a short spiel about the other (not free) tours that their company also offers. If you go then they will receive a commission. Many people also tip at the end of the free tour, but this is not compulsory.
There are two kind of tour guides in Rome, official and unofficial. In 95% of cases the unofficial guides give better tours. Why? 1. They speak English well; most of the official guides do not. 2. They have to make it interesting and entertaining if they want to sell the other tours, whereas the offical guides have no such incentive. 3. They are young and energetic, as opposed to many of the official guides who have been doing it for years and are totally burned out, repeating the same thing every day in a horrible monotone voice. I have come across a few official guides who were excellent, and I also know of a couple unofficial guides who have no business giving tours (never go on a tour with a South African named Grant), but by and large I believe my above statement holds true.
I can't vouch for all the unofficial guides in Rome, but I can tell you that some of the best guides in Rome are unofficial, only because the system forces them to stay that way. The licence exam is supposed to be held once a year, but in the 4 years I was there it was never given. The official guides control the committee, and they don't want any more competition, so the exam just isn't offered. The guides I worked with have a company called Eternal City Tours, and I can guarantee they all give great tours. Paul, Mike, Gabriel - they are all students living in Rome who know what they're talking about and are passionate about the city.*
Now, who's who: The ones holding up antennas with hankerchiefs tied to them, leading groups of people around like cattle, are the official guides. The ones who offer you free tours are unofficial, while the ones who approach you while you're in line for the Colosseum are not guides at all. They are attractive English speakers, usually female, who work for boring Italian guides, telling you that if you pay 10 euro or whatever it is for their tour then you can skip the line and go straight in. But the pretty Swedish girl who sold you on the tour is not the guide; the guide is an Italian with a microphone who is bored to tears because he gives the same spiel six times a day then goes home. The only reason people go on these tours is to skip the queue, but what the Swedish girl won't tell you is that you can skip it on your own without the tour. The ticket to the Colosseum costs 10 euro and is a joint ticket that also gets you into the Palatine Hill - the ruins right next to the Colosseum and the Roman Forum. There's never a line at the Palatine, so just go there, buy your ticket, then go back down to the Colosseum, skip the queue and go directly to the turnstiles.
And if you get offered a free tour anywhere in Rome I recommend you go. It won't cost you anything and you're bound to learn something.
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