🇮🇹Getting Around Rome: Metro, Buses and Which Ticket to Buy

For a visitor, metro plus walking handles about 90% of Rome. Buses fill the gaps. You don't need to master the network — you need about five stations and one ticket type.

The metro

Rome has two main lines, A and B (with a B1 branch), crossing at Roma Termini. Between them they reach the Colosseum, the Vatican and the Spanish Steps.

The historic centre — the Pantheon, Piazza Navona, the Trevi Fountain — has no metro station at all, because you can't dig there without hitting antiquities. You walk in from the edges, which is no hardship: the whole zone is about 20 minutes end to end.

Tickets

One ticket type works across metro, bus and tram.

• BIT single: €1.50 — one metro journey within 100 minutes (transfers allowed if you don't exit the gates), plus unlimited bus and tram transfers in that window
• 24-hour pass: €8.50
• 48-hour pass: €15
• 72-hour pass: €22
• CIS weekly pass: €29, valid until midnight on the seventh day
• Children under 10: free

Where to buy: metro station machines, newsstands, and tabacchi (tobacconists — look for the white T on a black sign). You cannot buy tickets on board a bus.

Validate before you travel. Metro gates do it automatically; on buses and trams you must stamp the ticket in the machine yourself. Inspectors do check, and the fine doesn't care that you meant to.

Which station for which sight

• Colosseum, Roman Forum — Line B, Colosseo. The exit puts you directly opposite.
• Vatican Museums, St Peter's — Line A, Ottaviano, then 500–800 metres on foot.
• Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain — Line A, Spagna.
• Pantheon, Piazza Navona — no station. Walk in from Spagna, or from Largo di Torre Argentina by bus.

Taxis

Rome's taxis are metered and the rules are reasonably transparent, but only take them from an official rank or have your hotel call one. Never accept a ride from someone approaching you at a station or airport — those are unlicensed and the price will be invented.

Airport transfers run on official fixed fares: Fiumicino to the city centre is €55, luggage included. If a driver quotes something else, that's your signal.

Hop-on hop-off buses

They exist, they loop past the major sights, and they cost far more than a 72-hour transit pass. They make sense if walking is difficult or you have half a day and no plan. Otherwise metro plus your own two feet is faster and much cheaper.

The Roma Pass includes transit

The Roma Pass bundles a 48- or 72-hour transport pass with attraction entry. Whether it's worth it depends entirely on which sights you're paying for — do the arithmetic rather than assuming.

Back to the Rome travel guide for the three-day route these stations serve.