I’m in Rome. I need a taxi in the morning. So apparently you can’t flag down a taxi here, you have to go to a taxi stand. Fine, but I can’t find a map online to taxi stands.
Any help appreciated.
I think the site is https://archeoroma.org for Rome’s taxi stand. It seems like a map of taxi stands.
Are you staying in a hotel or near any hotels? The desk clerk or concierge would likely be able to point you to the nearest one. Even if you’re not staying in a hotel, I would guess you could walk into one and ask them.
Actually archeoroma has a taxi form you fill out to reserve a taxi somust be done ahead.
I just used the taxi app to call them to my location, Uber-style. Was very easy, very fast. Payment is handled in app.
I recall that I used Free Now last year.
Well, one of the subpages of that website.
Halfway down the page (on my mobile browser) is a zoomable map.
In your position, @Lucas_Jackson, I would either open a browser to google and search for “taxi stands near me” or open Google Maps and search for the same. But I don’t know what kinds of mobile software and mapping you have handy.
@filmore’s concierge suggestion would also be awesome if that’s available. That’s what they’re there for.
No, I’m staying at a VRBO that’s not super close to a major hotel.
I tried “taxi stands near me” without much success. I’ll try the map again. Service is spotty.
For what it’s worth, last year I was told by the hotel desk staff to strongly prefer white taxis, as they would be more reliable. Maybe a licensing thing?
I was amazed at how affordable the Rome taxis were. From our hotel in the center of old town to Vatican, a ride of 40-45 minutes, was 10 Euro.
I’ll check it out. Thanks.
This was the other app… itTaxi. I never used this Free Now always worked but you could look at both to see if you like one more than the other. I’m sure I saw taxi stands, but literally everyone I noticed was using an app.
You must look like a local or someone not to be messed with. Taxis in Rome are famous for 2 things - driving like absolute maniacs, and way overcharging tourists. My family was a victim of both when we were there. Luckily the kids thought the driving like a maniac part was amusing.
Taxis were the worst part of our vacation time in Italy. In Naples, we got a taxi at the train station, and he left us over a kilometer from our hotel, I never understood why. In Rome, also at a train station, we were waiting in line and it’s kind of confused, we’re near but not at the front of the line, and some guy says he’s our taxi so we start following him, and this woman comes up and starts yelling at him, apparently he’s not a licensed taxi or something, and we were her fare, and so we went and got into her taxi. She spent the entire trip yelling at us for almost getting into a non-licensed taxi. Fortunately, our hotel wasn’t that far away. There were other taxi trip that were normal, but those two went pretty far towards spoiling our trip.
That’s one reason I liked the app experience. I’m not saying they had no methods of gouging me as a tourist, but I could see the route, I could tell we weren’t going wildly out of the way, and they couldn’t monkey with what I owed because it was clearly calculated right on the screen.
Update: using the taxi stand map link provided by gnoitall, I headed out first thing but, by chance, I hailed down a passing taxi along the way. I offset the gouging by putting in the route on google maps and showed my phone to the driver - letting him know I was tracking the route.
Thanks to all who helped.
So, what’s the public transportation system like in Rome? Just wondering why that wasn’t an option, even if it did mean allowing time for delays.
The Metro isn’t great. There are 2 lines with a 3rd coming, but it doesn’t hit much of the touristy area.
There is a fast train from Roma Termini to FCO airport, but getting to the train station can be a hassle. We pre-booked a 5:30 AM taxi for our return to North America.
As a tourist, I didn’t find public transport in Rome to be very effective. Metro wasn’t particularly helpful from my apartment and neighborhood, plus zipping around underground is no way to see the sights. Buses were unattractive in that I didn’t want to spend my limited time waiting for one and then slogging through traffic that a taxi could divert around.
Taxis were pretty cheap anyway. A rounding error in the total cost of my trips.
We had not heard good things, and for the reasons above decided against it. That and we had schedules to keep and I wasn’t sure of the reliability.
Taxis turned out to be relatively cheap and we found them to be honest. It worked out.