pam

In Rome this past summer,a "real" Roman taxi driver picked me up at the stand across the street from the Coliseum. It had been a wonderful but very long day and I was really beat...ALOT of walking.<BR>I showed him the card to my hotel (a good idea so there is no confusion as to location or pronunciation).<BR>He started on his way and after about 3 minutes we were in a traffic jam. He said " you get out now" "I not go there". I asked why not and he said "he didn't want to be in this traffic"! I told him I had NO idea where I was (I am very direction-challenged).He couldn't care less and asked for payment as he swung the door open leaning across me. <BR>I walked out the taxi and paid nothing.<BR>An hour later, I had arrived "home" on foot.<BR>Not a giant horror, but none too pleasant in the summer heat after such a long day.

stef

I was taking a taxi to my hotel in Athens Greece from just getting off a ferry at 11 pm at night. We hopped into the taxi and as we sat down, the taxi sped off and began clocking 140 km/hr. Upon further examination I noticed the passenger seat I was sitting in was not attached to the floor of the car! The seat was just laying on top of the floor of the front of the car. Each turn and curve caused it to lean into the passenger door or into the driver.<BR><BR>The cab driver then stopped along the way and picked up 2 other people and crammed them into the backseat with my two friends.<BR>It was the scariest ride I've ever had!!

ttt

interesting thread.

Annie

Last spring, husband and I arrived in Rome exhausted and without lire. We needed to call our apartment agency, but none of the pay phones worked, so we were visibly impatient and bait for a gypsy cab driver. He not only offers use of his cell phone, he calls the agency to announce our arrival and ETA at the apartment. We think he's our savior. Knowing to avoid non-licensed drivers, I ask what the fare is, but he's evasive and charming. We're just glad to have the ride. Odd sidebar: driver has a friend who rides with us, and there's no meter. He finally drops us about 5 blocks, and a lost 45 minutes, from where we need to be (not like we know). As I'm schlepping our luggage out of the trunk with the driver, husband is settling up with the navigator. And here's the kicker--husband doesn't know exchange rate. As we hike away, I ask what the fare was, knowing we probably got charged twice the 50,000 lire price it should have been. The final damage was 400,000 lire. Roughly TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS. <BR>Please--no scolding or mocking. I know it was our own bad choices that got us in the pickle, and it's made for a good story. And, it was in fact the worst thing that happened our entire two week trip, so we considered ourselves lucky.<BR>Moral of the story: NO gyspy cabs, know your exchange rate, and make sure the driver drops you at your door. Following those rules, we had several uneventful and cheap rides throughout our trip!

Karen

On our last trip to Italy, we arrived in Rome tired from our transatlantic flight. We went to the ATM and got lira. Unfortunately, my husband wasn't paying alot of attention to the money he got. Then we took a taxi to our hotel near the Spanish steps. When we were near the hotel, he stopped the cab and told us he couldn't go any further because the hotel was located in a pedestrian area (not true) and told us the fare was 80,000 lira. My husband gave him a bill that he thought was 100,000 lira. The cab driver did a fast switch - he palmed the 100,000 lira note and showed us a 10,000 lira note and told us we made a mistake and only gave him 10,000 lira. Unfortunately, we were so jet lagged, we believed him. My husband took back the 10,000 lira note and handed the driver another 100,000 lira. After that, the driver practically pushed us out of the cab and sped away. It was not until later that my husband realized that he never had any 10,000 lira notes, he only got 100,000 liras notes from the ATM. We felt frustrated, stupid and really annoyed. That was a very expensive cab dire. After that, if we took a cab, we showed each other the amount of lira we were using to pay the fare and we also made a note of the taxi cab number so we could report the problem if it happened again. After that, we were "alert" and never had a problem again.

christina

ciao karen<BR><BR>that's why i'm so happy about the euro. it will be much easier for everyone handle european money. finito with the hundreds of 0000 behind the number. and no one should have troubles with "what is now this here?? tenthousand or hundredthousand lire???" <BR><BR>i'm quite impressd about the roman taxidrivers now..... i'm in roma for business this thursday for 2 days and i call now my hotel in the suburbs to ask what the normal rate would be from the station to the hotel. <BR><BR>ian, have you been in roma now? and if yes, how do taxidrivers react?<BR><BR>tanti saluti<BR><BR>christina