[ GUIDE · THE DISPATCH ]

Getting Around Rome on Foot, Bus, and the Two Metro Lines That Barely Exist

Getting around Rome is mostly walking, occasionally swearing at a bus, and accepting that the metro has two and a bit lines that conveniently avoid everywhere you want to go. Here's how to actually move through the city.

For the full day-by-day version of everything below, read the Rome itinerary with an interactive map.

Let me set your expectations about getting around Rome before you arrive with a metro map and a dream: Rome has, essentially, two and a half metro lines, and they go almost nowhere you actually want to be. This isn’t incompetence. It’s archaeology. Every time they try to dig a new tunnel they hit a 2,000-year-old something and the whole project stops for a decade while the historians have a field day. So the city you came to see — the old centre — is mostly served by your own two feet. Welcome. Wear better shoes than you think you need.

Here’s the thing nobody tells you: the historic centre of Rome is small. On a map it looks like a sprawl, but you can walk from the Spanish Steps to the Pantheon to Piazza Navona to the Trevi Fountain in a loose afternoon, getting gloriously lost in between, and that getting-lost is half the point. The Colosseum to the Vatican is a longer haul (about an hour on foot) but doable and scenic if you’ve got the legs.

The catch is the surface. Roman cobblestones — sampietrini, those little black basalt squares — are beautiful and absolutely brutal on the feet and lethal in heels. I watched someone go down hard outside the Pantheon in nice shoes. Flat, cushioned, broken-in. I cannot stress this enough.

Two main lines: A (orange) and B (blue), crossing at Termini, the main station. There’s a newer C line that’s still being extended and which most visitors will never touch. Line A gets you to the Vatican area (Ottaviano stop) and the Spanish Steps (Spagna). Line B gets you to the Colosseum (Colosseo stop — the only time the metro feels genuinely useful). And that’s… kind of it for sightseeing.

So treat the metro as a long-distance shortcut — Termini to the Vatican, say, when your feet are done — not as your main way around. It’s fast and cheap when it happens to go where you’re going, which is rarely.

This is where Rome rewards a little homework. You don’t need to understand the whole bus network (nobody does, possibly not even the drivers). You need maybe two lines:

• The 64 runs from Termini past Piazza Venezia toward the Vatican. It’s the tourist artery — which also makes it the pickpocket artery, more on that below.
• The 40 Express does a similar route, slightly faster, slightly less mobbed.
• The 8 tram is handy if you’re staying in or visiting Trastevere, running it into the centre.

Buses are frequent-ish but timetables are aspirational. Use a maps app with live transit (Moovit is genuinely good in Rome, better than Google here) and just see what’s coming.

You can also just tap a contactless bank card straight onto the metro turnstiles and bus readers now, which is what I do — it works out the cheapest fare automatically and you skip the ticket faff entirely.

I’m not going to scare you, but I’m also not going to pretend. The crowded tourist buses — the 64 especially, it’s got a nickname, the “pickpocket express” — and the metro at Termini are where bags get opened. It’s not violent, it’s just skilled. Keep your phone and wallet zipped and in front of you, ignore the kids who shove a cardboard sign at your chest (that’s the distraction, the hand’s already in your bag), and you’ll be completely fine. Day bag in front, hand on it on busy buses. That’s the whole defence.

Official taxis are white, have a meter, and a published flat rate from the airports (Fiumicino to the centre is a fixed €50-ish — agree it’s the official fare before you get in, ignore the touts inside the terminal). Use the FreeNow or itTaxi apps to call legit ones. Avoid anyone who approaches you offering a ride.

The electric scooters littering the pavements look tempting but Roman traffic plus cobbles plus tram tracks is a genuinely bad combination for the inexperienced. I’d skip them. And the hop-on-hop-off tourist buses are overpriced and stuck in the same traffic as everything else — your feet are faster in the centre, truly.

Driving yourself? Don’t, not in the centre. There’s a restricted zone, the ZTL, that’s camera-enforced, and rental cars rack up fines without the driver ever knowing until the bill arrives months later. Park outside, train in.

The real secret to getting around Rome is to stop thinking like you’re getting around it and start thinking like you’re walking through it. The transit gaps force you onto the streets, and the streets are the entire point — you’ll find a fountain, a tiny church with a Caravaggio in it, a guy selling the best pistachio gelato you’ve ever had, none of which you’d see from a metro platform.

Walk till your feet quit, then grab the 64 and clutch your bag. Rome’s transit is a glorious mess, and honestly, the mess is part of why I keep going back. Buon viaggio.

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