Why
is touring Rome by golf
cart better than driving in a regular car or walking around?
Beats walking and that's for sure! And it's better
than a bus tour or a car tour because the golf cart
not only takes you to the main attractions, but also
shows you parts of Rome that are way off the beaten
path for most tourists and that really make you
familiar with Rome, its history and the "Roman way
of living life".
Touring around Rome in a regular car
you can't avoid driving on the main streets with all
their traffic, noise and you keep driving back and
forth on the same streets. The wide and long,
streets that cut through the old city of Rome were
built in the 1900's with the intent of keeping
traffic off the narrow old streets, but that's what
Rome is all about: the narrow streets are Rome.
Driving around by car, minivan or bus you end up
missing the best of Rome and just see the main
attractions where all the other tourists go. We try
not to drive on the main streets to avoid traffic,
noise, fumes... and other tourists :) !!
Where does the golf cart tour
take us?
There is no preset tour, the tours listed
on the tours page
are meant just give an idea of what can be covered in a
given amount of time, like what you can see in 4 hours,
in a day, on a night tour or if you've already seen all
the major highlights. You can design your own tour if you like,
with our help if needed. If you don't have an idea of what
you want to go see we'll help. You just tell us what
your interest is and we'll help you design your tour accordingly. We can take you to see
the major highlights as well as the off the beaten track
places which not many tourists see. We try to avoid
driving on the main streets and consequently, even when
your
tour is centered on the fundamental sites, you end up
seeing a lot of places off the beaten track
because that's where we drive!
When we go on a golf cart
tour, do we just drive or do we stop to visit the sites?
The golf cart tour is not just a
driving tour!
We will stop at the sites and let you
get out of the cart to stroll through the squares, tour
the inside of the monuments and churches or to toss your
coin at the Trevi Fountain.
During the tour we'll also take you to a great place for
"gelato" and for lunch, if you choose to go on a
full-day tour.
Are the
golf carts street legal?
Yes, the
golf carts are street legal. They're equipped with lights, license plates, horns, seat belts and
everything else the European laws require for a
vehicle to drive on the streets.
We are coming to Rome's port by cruise ship, can we
still go on a golf cart tour?
Yes, the
golf carts can't drive all the way to the port of
Civitavecchia, but you can take the
train into Rome or we can arrange your round trip
transfer by private car and, once you get to the city
we'll come to meet you in our golf cart and we'll take
you on the best tour of Rome!
St. Yves' Chapel
How many passengers can you take in a golf cart?
The classic golf cart accommodates three
passengers plus driver, then we have a "stretched limo"
golf cart for seven passengers plus driver. Soon there
will be another one for five passengers plus driver.
Therefore for larger groups more than
one golf cart will be needed. The additional cars
can be driven by a member of the group or we will
provide an additional driver. The cost of the
additional golf cart for a half-day tour is 60
Euros, for the 6-hour tour is 80 Euros and for the
full-day tour it's 110 Euros . The cost of the
additional driver for a half-day tour is 60 Euros,
for the 6-hour tour is 80 Euros and for the full-day
tour it's 110 Euros . .
We'll give all the necessary assistance
to those who will decide to drive themselves the
additional carts instead of hiring a second driver. The
driver of the leading cart who will always make sure
they don't get left behind.
The Ursettas
Do we get any narration or commentary as we tour
around?
Do we just drive or do we stop to
visit places?
You sure do! We
make frequent stops and we tell you about the places we
drive by or stop and visit plus, we can stop for you
to have a fabulous ice cream, lunch or coffee. We'll
take you to the best authentic places, not where the
tourists go !
Driving
in a motorcade, are
we going to be able to hear instructions and commentary
?
If the size of your group is such that
more
than one cart is required, all the drivers and the passengers will be
given with headsets by which they
will be constantly in touch with the driver of the
leading cart who'll be speaking to them via microphone.
This has an additional cost: 2 Euros per person
for the half day tour and 3 Euros per person for the
full day.
Where
does the golf cart tour tour start from?
We will start from your hotel, if it is
located within the center of the city, generally that
means not outside of the Old Roman Walls, or at the
train station if you're coming to Rome by train from the
port of Civitavecchia or anywhere else. For cruisers it
would be preferable to start the tour from the "Stazione
San Pietro", St. Peter's station, near the Vatican.
Please remember that you'll be touring Rome by golf cart
with very limited space for gear.
The
average driving range for a golf cart is 80 kilometers
(50 miles) per day which is more than a full day tour of
Rome requires, but does not allow us to drive to your hotel if this is not in proximity of the old
city. If your hotel is located outside of the Old Roman
Walls maybe they'll have a shuttle service you can
use to reach the city center and we'll come to meet
you where the shuttle drop you off. If this isn't
your case, we will discuss where the
most convenient meeting place for you would be.
The "limo" in front of the hotel Raphael
Where does the golf cart tour of Rome end?
At the end of the golf cart
tour you can be dropped off anywhere in the city or
at the Vatican. For example, if you want just a half
day tour in the morning and you want to spend the
afternoon on your own at the Vatican or walking
around the ruins at the Colosseum and Roman Forum,
we'll drop you off at any of these two places at the
end of your tour.
Isn't it really hot driving around in a golf cart in
the Summer?
Golf buggies are not air conditioned,
right?
Rome is hot in the Summer, no doubt
about that, but it's hot even if you tour around in a
nice air-conditioned Mercedes. We know very well since
we've been doing it for decades!
Touring around Rome
in a car and making
frequent stops to visit places, most of the times you leave the car parked in the sun.
If there's a little space for you, you better take
it, even if it's in the sun and so, when you get back to the car,
it's as hot as an
oven! You open the windows as you
start driving and, when the car starts it starts to cool off,
you close the windows to let the air-conditioner do
its job but, by the time you start feeling the
cool air coming, you've arrived at your next stop
and you start all over again!
There's always a nice breeze in Rome
and the golf carts are completely open so you start
feeling a cool breeze as you start driving.
The golf cart's roof keeps
its seats
and their occupants in the shade and the cart is so little
that we manage to find a little shady
spot where to park it almost anywhere. Finally, please consider the
quaint narrow streets we drive
are always
shady and cool.
The dome of St. Andrew's church and
the restaurant "Er Pallaro"
How long does the golf cart tour take?
As we said before, there are no preset
itineraries, consequently there are no preset times for
starting or ending the tours. The tour is you private
tour and, at the end of it, we want you say it was:
My Best Tour
!!!
There's a lot to see in Rome and so
the shortest
tour is four hours, but the best is the full-day tour.
If we can go the whole day we can show you all the
best of Rome and take you to some great authentic
restaurant for lunch!
You can also hire us for multiple days,
we can promise we'll always
have new places to show you!
Please don't
forget we can take you on wonderful excursions
outside the city in our nice Mercedes minivans!
A modern painter at the Janicolum
Hill
What are the prices for the
golf cart tours?
Here following are the prices for the
golf cart tours. We believe that they are not any
steeper than most of the other tours, but we believe
they're better we're also sure that at the end you'll
say this was:
My Best Tour
!!!
Please consider that if you bring a wheel
chair with you, it may use up the space of
one or even two passengers, depending on its
size, and therefore you'll have to use an
additional cart even for a group of only 2/3
people or reserve the "deluxe" buggy with
the special space for the wheel chair.
The port of Civitavecchia
The train
station is quite far from the piers where the cruise ships
dock but there is a free shuttle service, provided by the
Port Authority, that takes you from your ship right to the port's gate.
From where the shuttle drops you off to the train station is a 10-minute
walk.
The shuttle
bus picks you up from the pier where your ship docks and
drops you off by the fortress designed by
Michelangelo located within the boundaries of the port, next
to a "tourist information" kiosk, just a few steps away from the port's gate
.
You don't need to go anywhere to catch the shuttle bus, you
just need to wait by your ship's gangplank and it'll
come by and stop to pick up the passengers.
The shuttle bus constantly runs between the cruise ships and
and Michelangelo's fortress.
Should it not be there when you disembark your ship, you'll
just need to wait a few minutes.
When you get off the shuttle walk towards the
information kiosk and, once you reach it, walk to your right
to face the port's exit.
Walk across the gate
to exit the port and you'll se
a "Mc Donald's" restaurant
on your left. At this point you should be facing the seaside
boulevard.
Walk on the
seaside boulevard keeping the beach to your right.
It
doesn't really matter which side of the boulevard you walk
on but maybe walking on the left hand side would be better,
since the train station is on the left hand side of the
boulevard.
Walking on the
left hand side of the boulevard you'll pass by a church,
shops, restaurants and hotels, till you'll arrive to
a point, just near the "Hotel De la Ville", where the street
sort of splits in two to continue in the same direction but on two
different levels. Continuing to walk on the upper level
of the street you'll arrive directly to the train station and it'll appear
to you as shown in the picture on the right.
Walkingon the right
hand side of
the boulevard you'll pass some shops, a merry-go-round and
some sort of a tourist market which really isn't always
there.
If you walk on
the right side of the boulevard or on
the lower level of the street, you'll see a sign pointing to the train station.
The sign, black letters in white field, says "stazione ff.
ss." (in Italian this means State Railroads Station)
and it's placed right at the bottom of the short stairway
which you'll have to climb to get to the train station.
Please note
that if you'll have walked this far on the right hand side of the
boulevard, the sign will be on the other side of the street
and you'll have to walk across the street to climb steps
and get
to the train station.
Once at the train
station you can buy your B.I.R.G. ticket (acronym for Biglietto
Integrato Regionale Giornaliero = Daily Integrated Regional
Ticket), such ticket, presently (2011) sold for 9 Euros, not
only is
valid for the round trip from Civitavecchia, but also to
ride the
buses and the subway in Rome for the day. Its validity is 24
hours.
Do not forget
to validate your ticket at the stamping machine in the
lounge before you board the train.
You can buy
your ticket
from the vending machines if you are familiar with such
devices or from the ticket office simply asking for
"B.I.R.G. Roma".
You can also
check the train schedule and buy
your ticket on line clicking on this link:
www.trenitalia.com.
You can get
off the train at St. Peter's station which is near the
Vatican if that where you want to start your tour from or at
the main train station called "Termini" if you want to
start touring the city from its center. St. Peter's station
is very small and it's a lot easier to meet there rather
than the huge and dispersive Termini.
The trains from
Civitavecchia stop also at other stations in the city, but
San Pietro or Termini are the preferable ones for sightseers.
The shuttle bus picks you up from your
ship's
gangplank and takes you to
Michelangelo's Fortress right by the port's gate.
The shuttle bus
drops you off by Michelangelo's fortress, in the
grounds of the port of
Civitavecchia, near to the gate out.
This side of Mc Donald's
faces the seaside boulevard. Walk
straight along the seafront until you get to the
station.
The train station in Civitavecchia.
This sign points to the train
station.
This
machine stamps your ticket and
validates it for 24 hours. Not validating it is
the same as not having it.
This is the sign you will see arriving at San
Pietro station in Rome, at a walking distance
from the Vatican .
This is the sign you will see arriving at Rome's
main railway station, Termini, right in the
center of the city .
Civitavecchia is pronounced
chee vee ta vek ya or
if your are familiar with phonetic symbols,
Chē’vē-tä-vĕk’yä and if
you want to hear it, click here:
Civitavecchia
City map of Civitavecchia
( clicking on the image will take you to Google
Maps )
Map of the Vatican and the
neighborhood of the Stazione San Pietro
( clicking on the image will take you to Google
Maps )
What kind of weather should we expect?
Here below is a chart with the average weather in Rome
Climatedata
for Rome-Ciampino airport, near city centre (1961–1990)
Month
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
Year
Average high °C (°F)
11.8
(53.2)
13.0
(55.4)
15.2
(59.4)
18.1
(64.6)
22.9
(73.2)
27.0
(80.6)
30.4
(86.7)
30.3
(86.5)
26.8
(80.2)
21.8
(71.2)
16.3
(61.3)
12.6
(54.7)
20.5
Daily mean °C (°F)
7.3
(45.1)
8.3
(46.9)
10.1
(50.2)
12.8
(55.0)
17.0
(62.6)
20.9
(69.6)
23.9
(75.0)
23.9
(75.0)
20.8
(69.4)
16.3
(61.3)
11.6
(52.9)
8.3
(46.9)
15.3
Average low °C (°F)
2.7
(36.9)
3.5
(38.3)
5.0
(41.0)
7.5
(45.5)
11.1
(52.0)
14.7
(58.5)
17.4
(63.3)
17.5
(63.5)
14.8
(58.6)
10.8
(51.4)
6.8
(44.2)
3.9
(39.0)
10.0
Precipitation mm (inches)
102.6
(4.039)
98.5
(3.878)
67.5
(2.657)
65.4
(2.575)
48.2
(1.898)
34.4
(1.354)
22.9
(0.902)
32.8
(1.291)
68.1
(2.681)
93.7
(3.689)
129.6
(5.102)
111.0
(4.37)
874.7
(34.437)
Avg. precipitation days
9.0
8.8
8.7
8.7
5.8
4.4
2.2
3.2
5.6
7.6
10.9
9.6
84.5
Sunshine hours
120.9
132.8
167.4
201.0
263.5
285.0
331.7
297.6
237.0
195.3
129.0
111.6
2,472.8
Source: Servizio Meteorologico dell'Aeronautica Militare
( clicking on the image will take you to Google
Maps ) 
