Italy | Public Transportation

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By Andrea Zachrich

Coming from Los Angeles, where the public transportation is seldom used and pretty inconvenient, I thought the public transportation in Rome was awesome. Yes, it was almost never on time, and yes, it was often crowded with people who couldn’t seem to figure out a bus map, but the whole month I was there it got me where I needed to be mostly on time.

So there’s three kinds of public transportation in Rome: the subway, the busses, and the trams. We mainly used the busses and the trams. There are only a few subway lines in Rome because every time they attempt to build a new line, some ancient monument or site is found and they have to stop construction. They’re attempting to build a new one by the Coliseum at the moment, but it has been slow going. They also don’t have any subway lines that go under the river and into Trastevere. I only used the subway twice the entire month I was there, so I didn’t find it particularly useful, but it could be if you’re staying near a stop. The trams are awesome, but there’s only 2 lines – the 3 and the 8. BUT, both lines go to very convenient places. The 8 ends in one of the main piazzas of Rome – Piazza Venezia – and goes to Trastevere, and the 3 has stops near the Coliseum, Largo Argentina (where Julius Caesar was murdered!) and other ancient sites. Another advantage of the tram is that it’s almost always on time. If the tram gets you to your location, it would be my first choice of public transportation to use. The busses are the most extensive type of public transportation in Rome and can get you almost anywhere in the city that you want to go. The one downfall to them, however, is that they are constantly running late. Sometimes they’re running so late that you think they’re on time because they get there at the time it says the bus after them should be there. There’s a ton of tourists on busses, because this is the form of transportation that stops at many of the main tourist sites, but as long as you’re not going as peak hours it’s usually isn’t unbearably crowded.

What I did

So, I was there for a month, and I knew I was going to be using public transportation extensively. If we ever used the bus as a class, those tickets were covered, but everything else was our own responsibility to pay for. So I decided to get a month long unlimited bus pass. Our program director offered to reimburse us the cost of all the tickets we would use as a class (16 euros) if we decided to purchase our own pass (which was 38 euros). It was a great deal. I definitely used the bus/tram more that the 15 times I paid for (in terms of individual tickets) and it was nice to have the peace of mind that comes with knowing I could always use it if i needed it. Also, with our apartment a 20-25 minute walk from where we met every morning, the bus pass was a god send. I used it to get around town when friends visited, my brother was here, or I just wanted to go out and explore. It made exploring Rome easy and fast, and I’m very glad I purchased one.

What you should do

If you’re just there for a few days or a week, and know you’re going to be using the public transportation system a lot, I would get one of the passes that will let you have unlimited rides. I think they have 1 day, 2 day, 3 day, and 1 week passes. If you don’t think you’re going to be using public transportation that much, then you can also buy individual tickets. They’re 1.50 euro and are good for 90 minutes. If you’re there for a month like we were, I would get the month pass. It really depends on the length of time you’re going to be there and the amount of public transportation you think you’re going to use.

Where do you buy bus tickets?

Italy is very unique in that you cannot buy bus tickets at the bus, and you cannot buy bus tickets at the bus station (unless you’re at one of the main ones such as Termini). You have to get them at Tabacchi. In English, these are translated into Tobacco Shops, and, even though they sell cigarettes, they also sell a lot of other items as well. Tabacchi are the place to go for stamps, snacks, bus tickets, occasionally SIM cards etc. It’s basically just a very specific convenience shop. Look for a white “T” enclosed in a blue square, and they should have public transportation tickets!

A photo of a typical Tabacchi shop I stole from the Internet

Some tips for the public transportation

Part of the reason using public transportation in Rome is so easy is because you can use Google maps to tell you the route you have to take. This is awesome, because in many places the public transportation system isn’t mapped out on an app like this. You type in where you want to go, and Google maps will tell you how to get to the station, how many stops you have, which stop to get off of, and how to get to your destination. They also usually provide more than one option of how to get there. I included some photos below.

So the way the tickets work is that you get them stamped by a machine as soon as you walk on the bus as a way to start the 90 minute time. You should always stamp your ticket. I know it seems like you might be able to get away with not stamping it and then reusing the ticket, but one of the students on my trip got a nearly 100 euro fine for not stamping her ticket (even though she had one!) If you have the passes for more than 1 trip, the officer will scan it to make sure its still valid (but they’re not really looking for you because most of the times tourists with those tickets don’t abuse them).

Another tip: watch you stuff closely. They’re aren’t a ton of pickpockets on the streets of Rome, but they are a lot on the busses and trams! One of the students in our group got here wallet stolen by a group of pick pocketers who had a baby with them, so don’t assume that just because people look like a family on vacation that they won’t take your stuff. Always zip your bags and hold it in front of you.

Public transportation in Rome is super easy! Have fun and be safe 🙂

Italy | Pompeii Field Trip

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By Andrea Zachrich

The Pompeii Forum! That mountain is Mt. Vesuvius

This was definitely my favorite weekend of the trip. As part of the class, we got to take a bus to Pompeii, stay in a motel (with a pool), and visit the ancient site for a day and receive lectures. Having an opportunity like this is honestly so cool. Everything is planned out for you (all you have to do is hop on the bus). You don’t have to worry about tickets for the site or transportation or getting a tour guide or looking up information. Also, our professor encouraged the class to look into visiting one of the islands off the coast of the Bay of Naples after the field trip, so some of us went to Ischia, and it was amazingly beautiful.

Class Set Up

We left for the field trip on a Friday morning and then the site visit was on a Saturday. It takes about three hours to get from Rome to Pompeii by bus, so we got to the motel around lunch time. You get to pick your roommates in advance. The motel is pretty nice – nothing super special but it was clean, had AC, a pool, and breakfast, and the beds were comfortable. It’s also within walking distance to the entrance of Pompeii. You get to pick what you want to do that first day (I’ll talk about the options in a second), and then that evening we went to dinner as a class. Personally, I was not a fan of the food at the dinner, but it was nice to eat in all together in a big group. Then, we all went to bed fairly early because we were walking down to the site the next morning at 8 am.

Options for Day 1

So for that first day you’re there, you basically have three options.

1.Visit Herculaneum with the professor – I did not take this option (although normally this is something I would do) because my brother and I were planning on going here when he flew out in a couple weeks, and I didn’t want to visit it twice. Herculaneum is amazing though. It’s much better preserved than Pompeii because it’s excavations were carried out in a much better and more systematic way. It’s also much less crowded. My brother and I went on a Saturday and there were barely any people there. The site also gives you a very detailed and very useful information booklet, but if you go with the professor you (obviously) wouldn’t have to worry about that. Getting here from Pompeii or Naples is pretty easy. You have to take what we named the “World’s Hottest Train” and I think it’s about a euro or a euro fifty each way. We named it the “World’s Hottest Train” because it was incredibly crowded and there was no AC and that made it blazing hot. Be prepared to break a sweat. Below are a bunch of pictures of my visit to Herculaneum with my brother.

  1. Take a bus to the top of Mount Vesuvius – This is another really cool option that you have for that first day. I didn’t do it with the class because I knew I would be back, but it’s awesome. Basically, you pay 20 euro (10 euro for the bus ride and 10 for the Mt. Vesuvius park ticket) and a bus company with take you up the mountain and deposit you fairly close to the top. There’s great views and you can even look into the crater of the volcano. Mt. Vesuvius is still an active volcano and it was smoking when I went.
  1. Chill by the pool and/or wander around the town – this is the option I chose to do because I knew I would be doing the first two later. I’m not sure if I would recommend it unless you know you’re coming back. But it was very relaxing for us. We found a surprisingly good pizza place next to a parking lot, and then wandered through the town and got more e limone (blackberry and lemon) granitas (peep at my post about food to try if you don’t know what that is). Then we took a nap and hung out by the pool. It was a nice break honestly.

History of Pompeii

At the time Pompeii was buried in the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD, it was a medium-size Roman town right on the coast in the Bay of Naples. About 10,000 people lived there (plus al of their slaves). The eruption actually made it so that the town is now about 2km kilometer away from the ocean, but in antiquity it would have been right on the water. Being on the coast and near a river (Sarno), it was a center for trade and commerce and had a thriving agricultural sector.

We’re not entirely sure who founded the city, but we think it’s been around since the 8th or 7thcentury BC. The Etruscan lived in that area, the Greeks say they had a colony around there, and the Samnite people live in the region also. Either way, by it was definitely a Roman town by the 2ndcentury BC.

In antiquity, the town was mainly known for the products it produced. One of the more famous was garum, a fermented fish sauce used extensively by the Romans. Italian food doesn’t reflect this taste today, but garum was essentially used as salt to flavor food. Some of the best came from Pompeii. The town, being right next a volcano, had incredibly fertile volcanic soil in which to grow produce. Pompeii was also well known for its grapes/wine, figs, olives, nuts, and other types of food. The area was also a place where many wealthy Romans would have vacation villas where they would go during the summer to escape the heat of the city. As you can imagine, Pompeii was a fairly well – off city.

The beginning of the end for Pompeii started in 64 Ad, 15 years before the fateful eruption. In that year, there was a gnarly earthquake that the town was still rebuilding from when the eruption happened. Earthquakes continued to occur in that time frame before the eruption, but it doesn’t seem as though they did as much damage as the original.

In 79 AD, the people of the Bay of Naples woke up to a really loud bang. They didn’t know what had caused it, but it was the magma of Vesuvius breaking through the surface. By about mid-day, there was a massive mushroom cloud in the sky. Ash and small pumice stones began to fall like rain. It was at this point that many people left the city. Soon after, buildings began to collapse due to the weight of the stones falling. At this point though, almost everyone in the cities were OK (unless a building fell on them or something). Many went to bed thinking that they would wake up in the morning and the raining rock would be over. That night, pyroclastic surges – incredibly fast gushes of heat and ash – began to run down the mountain and wash through the town. It was these that killed people and leave the famous plaster casts you can see today – the surge would suffocate someone almost instantly.

It is believed that the emperor at the time, Titus, tried to send a rescue mission where they found no survivors. There is also a theory that this rescue crew may have dug up the treasury and some of the art from the forum of Pompeii, because that has yet to be found during excavations (although it’s possible that it’s in a part of the town that has not yet been excavated). The rescue crew deemed recovering the city a lost cause, and eventually, the buried town was forgotten by history.

But, in the late 1700’s, when they were digging a well, Pompeii was re-discovered. Massive excavations were done (none too carefully I might add). People were fascinated with the town. It still had much of its frescoes and mosaics and shops and homes very well-preserved. Nowadays, Pompeii (and Herculaneum) can provide scholars with some of the best evidence to learn about day to day lives of ancient Romans. From the election notices on the walls to the dirty graffiti to the brothels to the homes in Pompeii, there is a ton to be learned about the ancient Romans here.

Side note on the plaster casts of people: they still have them, but there are a lot fewer than there used to be and they don’t really have any plans to make more, which I think is a good thing. Honestly, I think it’s barbaric to use the exact moment of someone’s death in a brutal and catastrophic way as a macabre form of entertainment for tourists. Would you want your moment of death, especially in one as scary as this, to be looked at by millions of people hundreds of years later?? But, I digress.

My favorite things about Pompeii

Being with professor Gurval, we learned quite a few fun facts about Pompeii that I really enjoyed, so I thought I would list a few facts and my favorite places there.

  • If you see red painted letters on an exterior wall, it’s probably an election notice. Pompeii has some of the best evidence for these. Through these, we learn that women did have influence over and participate in politics by promoting candidates even though they could not vote. It was awesome to go with our professor because he could translate them for us.
  • Many of the mosaics on the floors of shops will tell you what they are. If you see a ship, it could be a shipbuilder or a merchant. If you see wine, it’s probably a wine shop. Also, the Romans had bars and fast food very similar to us today. They would keep food or drinks in little holes cut out of the bar, and many places even had furnaces to keep them warm.
  • Ancient Rome had a ton of brothels (like really, there were a lot). In Pompeii, we have a particularly interesting example that has different sex acts painted over the doors to rooms. Some have speculated that patrons to the brother would pick the type of sexual encounter they wanted based on the picture above the door, but others think it was just decoration (or maybe inspiration for the customers) in the brother.
  • The House of Vetii – this house is awesome and in very good shape. It was built by two freedman (ex-slave) brothers who lived together. It’s got gorgeous frescoes of mythological scenes, and a few interesting representations of Priapus (the god of male fertility who is almost always depicted with a massive phallus).
  • The forum – this is your pretty typical Roman forum, but I found it particularly interesting because the largest building there, a slave market, was actually built by a woman. Pompeii actually caused a lot of Roman scholars to rethink their (sexist) views that women were not players in Roman society. Based on evidence from Pompeii, it’s clear that many had influence and were very wealthy in their own right.
  • You will see stones that span the width of the roads in many places. These are there because Pompeii did not have a sewage system, and people would use these to cross the street when there was rain water or sewage or anything else in the streets. There’s spaces between them so that carts, usually pulled by horses or donkeys or even people, could fit their wheels there.
  • There are a decent amount of stray dogs in the site. As someone who studies Classics, I know it probably isn’t a great idea to have animals in an archeological site, BUT THEY’RE SO CUTE! Here’s one from Pompeii.

Tips for Visiting

Go in the morning as soon as the site opens. And go on a weekday. This place got packed by the time we were ready to leave around 2. Also, unless you don’t mind paying for the overpriced food in the café that on-site, bring snacks. You can also bring in a water bottle – they’ve actually run pipes back into some of the ancient fountains so you can drink that. I would also have some plan of what you would like to see in advance. As you can imagine, it’s quite a large site and you could save yourself some walking by not having to backtrack.

As I mentioned earlier, we had the opportunity to go to Ischia following our visit (and I know some other people in the class went to Capri). I would recommend Ischia because there are a lot less tourists and most of the tourists there are people from Naples. The food is delicious, they don’t over charge you for food, it’s not as crowded, and the beaches are gorgeous. There’s also a really cool castle right off the coast that you can walk across a bridge to get to. The castle has a ton of buildings and even a torture museum! We had a great time on Ischia, so if you have the chance to go, I definitely would.

This was a great part of our trip. I feel very fortunate that it was included in the program and I feel like I learned a lot of ancient Rome by visiting Pompeii.