wdiamond

Hi,

Arriving Civitavecchia via cruise on Friday, April 13th. Will be staying at Bettoja Atlantico Hotel in Rome. Interested in doing "hop-on hop-off bus tour. Where is the closest place from hotel to start this bus tour. No self laundry on ship. So when I arrive need to do laundry. Are there laundry facility close to hotel? Also, recommendations to visit Vatican and Colesseum. Will be there for 4 days. Open to suggestions.

fmpden

Since I have no idea where your hotel is without some searching myself it could be helpful to tell us where it is. The Termini area is where all of the buses start. Second, ask the hotel where the nearest self service laundry is.

tuscanlifeedit

Taking a quick look, it appears that your hotel is right at Termini. That ought to be very close to the HOHO bus, although I've never taken it.

This might be helpful for your sightseeing:

https://www.rometoolkit.com/whattodo...n_tour_bus.htm

I too would email the hotel for laundry recommendation.

For specific suggestions for visiting the Vatican and Colosseum, I would recommend a guide book like Rick Steves, who helps get novice tourists through these places.

There is plenty of information in other places, but Steves does a good job of breaking down the basics.

fmpden

If it is near Termini then it is handy to the hop on/off buses. All of their tickets offices are on the north side of the plaza in front of Termini. We frequently stay in the Termini area. There are several self laundries in the area. Ask your hotel to direct you to the closest one. We use one across the street from Hotel Contilla - same area. For for fixed price they will do your laundry, fold it, and available for pick up later in the day.

fmpden

PS There are several hop on/off bus companies and routes. So check the routes carefully.

Blueeyedcod

Just be aware that the HoHo buses in Rome can't get to many of the sights - e.g. Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon - as they can't navigate their way down the tiny streets.
They are also frequently stuck in traffic so their schedules are not to be relied upon.

bvlenci

If you just wanta hop-on, hop-off tour to get an introduction to the city, that's fine. However, as a way to get around, they're extremely inefficient. Apart from the fact that they can't travel on the narrow streets in the center, the city has also greatly restricted the number of stops they can make in the center, as a air pollution and traffic congestion control measure.

Most of the companies offer a cheaper ticket if you don't do any hopping, but just ride the bus for a complete ciruit. This would avoid one of the other problems with these buses, which is that, especially in high season, they tend to be packed when they leave Termini station, and not many people get off at the other stops. So people that hopped off to walk to Trevi Fountain sometimes have to wait for two or three buses to pass before they can hop on another bus with seats available.

Finally, the best hop-off, hop-on company was run by the Rome transportation authority. They were recently forced to fold, because of a scandal about getting the contract without competitive bidding.