In Rome, the hop-on hop-off buses have limited places where they are allowed to stop, and none of them are very near places of interest, so there will be considerable walking if they actually want to hop on and off. In addition a lot of people complain that if they hop off, they have trouble hopping back on, because the buses are usually full when they arrive at the stops. If your friend just wants to ride around, these may not be problems.

Thank you all. I think we’re going to look at the golf cart as it’s also more flexible than the buses. I appreciate all of your comments — I didn’t even think of that option. I’m a walker and much prefer that but I understand I need to make compromises when traveling with others.

I've done HOHO in Rome and I think it was early evening and it was perfectly lovely. We hopped off near the forum for dinner at Taverna dei Fori Imperiale, (suggested by the Italy Expert at Andrew Harper) and it was excellent. I think you could wait until you're in town to book.

Rome is amazingly walkable...much more so that the other three capital cities: London, Paris, Madrid. And the traffic can be -- on occasion -- nearly stand-still in places. Plus, one of the great charms of Rome is that every two or three minutes walking, you come across a wonderful, unexpected little piazza with a fountain (with drinkable water!). This will not happen on a bus.

During our first time in Rome, on numerous occasions, we accidentally walked past our destination because the distances in the ancient core were much smaller than they seemed on the map.

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I have spent time in Rome on a number of occasions over the years and walked everywhere, however I used the HOHO in Rome with my late husband due to mobility issues. What some people consider reasonable walking distance is not the same for everyone and this was a good way for him to see some parts of Rome without having to grab a taxi. We stayed on the bus for one circuit without getting off and on the second circuit got off at one of the spots he wanted to explore.