Rome: Where All Roads Lead - Italy - page 15

Rome As a Clock
Make your central point of reference the Piazza Venezia, with its giant white mon-
ument to Victor Emmanuel II (often called the wedding cake or the typewriter,
but officially known as the Vittoriano).
u From here, imagine that the Vittoriano is the center of a clock and Piazza del
Popolo to the north is 12 o'clock.
u Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, and Villa Borghese are in a line at 1 o'clock.
u Piazza Barberini and the Via Veneto are at 2 o'clock.
u Termini Station is at 3 o'clock.
u The Colle Oppio and Domus Aurea are at 4 o'clock.
u The Imperial Forums, Palatine Hill, and Colosseum are at 5 o'clock.
u The Roman Forum and the Circus Maximus are at 6 o'clock.
u Testaccio is at 7 o'clock.
u The Jewish Ghetto and Trastevere are at 8 o'clock.
u The Gianicolo is at 9 o'clock.
u Campo de' Fiori is at 10 o'clock.
u The Pantheon, Piazza Navona, and Vatican City are at 11 o'clock.
The long, straight street that extends north from the Vittoriano is the Via del
Corso, which slices through the historical center, ending at Piazza del Popolo and the
far gate into the city. This is a noisy, smog-infested thoroughfare that you don't ever
really need to walk down, but you should always know where you are in relation to
it. To get your bearings, you can always see the Vittoriano from Via del Corso.
WALKING
Getting around the center of Rome is best done on foot. There is so much to see
en route to the various museums and antiquities. Never mind that the streets
wind around each other and street names are hard to find—it's actually a very easy
city to navigate.
PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION
Public transportation within the city of Rome is comprehensive, though not very reli-
able if you are in a hurry. Efforts to enforce a timetable for buses in particular have
proven impossible because of heavy and unpredictable traffic. In general, buses in the
city center should run at 15-minute intervals, but often several buses from the same
line are backed up at various stops and the wait can be up to 45 minutes for others.
Buses & Trams
Bus and tram transportation is operated by ATAC ( % 800-431784; www.atac.
roma.it), which has a comprehensive multilingual website to help you decipher
the routes. Each bus or tram stop has an ATAC board listing relevant bus lines.
Tickets are available at green self-service kiosks at Termini, Largo Argentina, and
Piazza San Silvestro; they are also sold by news agents displaying the ATAC sign, as
well as at all tobacco shops with a brown-and-white T sign. You can also buy tickets