Segway Tours in Rome

Not sure if you've never Segwayed, but just in case, here's my story:

I did a Segway tour last summer in the Spanish city of Burgos. I believe I paid around 20 Euros for an hour. Two guides went with me, a young male and female. The woman was much better at English, so I spent most of the time talking with her as we drove around.

I'd wanted to do a Segway tour ever since I saw a group zipping up a Paris street in 2003. And I'm glad I did it. After a brief lesson, we took off and I got a fun and interesting tour of Burgos that was tailored to what I wanted to see (they gave me a couple route choices based on what sights I was interested in). And I got to be somewhat of a tourist attraction myself, if the local's stares and smiles were any indication.

The only issue I had was my feet. I had been doing a lot of walking (I was hiking across Spain), and being on my feet the whole time and shifting my body weight to steer & go forward and backward bothered my feet a bit. But I was wearing cheapo sandals, so if you do it I recommend wearing comfortable shoes.

Anyway, the experience was a blast, and it would've been worth twice the price. As long as you have good balance and take care of your feet, you should be OK. Good luck if you choose to Segway!

29 prior discussions in HL and GW of Segway here: search, upper right box, on Segway.

I did the search Kent suggested but didn't see any mention of Segway tours in Rome. There are a lot of them that mention Paris, one about Madrid, and one about Florence. A quick scan of some comments showed general agreement that they were fun and the Segways are easy to learn to use.

Didn't see anything specific to the tour of Rome though. But it sounds like a wonderful idea. I think I'll look into that for my next trip there. Sure beats walking!

Where did you learn about them?

Patrick - I did a segway search for Rome and came up with I Glide Tours and Rentals in Rome.

Does sound like fun and we will probably do this.

Thanks for your input.

Rita

I checked the I Glide website and I see they also have I Glide tours in Philadelphia.

I think it would be excellent to do their Villa Borghese tour. A Segway should be a great way to see a large park. I wish I could have one to do Hadrian's Villa!

If you do this, I hope you'll take a moment to report back here on how you liked it.

You can rent Segways as part of a tour group in Rome OR by the half-hour or hour from various vendors. In Piazza Popolo, near the Spanish Steps and Via Corso you can rent a Segway for E8 a half hour or E15 for an hour.

One of the vendors you will see advertised is Free Mobility. These folks also rent scooters, scooters for the disabled, bikes, and Segways and are located in/near Villa Borghese. Contact: Free Mobility, www.freemobility.it or telephone +39 392 031 8306. say you saw their ad in "The Roman Forum" magazine and get a 20% discount.

Ciao,
Ron

Call me old fashioned but unless you have mobility issue the best way to explore Rome is on foot. It's a compact city, the sidewalks near the sights are usually extremely crowded and a bit of exercise does the body good.

Rita, I took the Segway tour of Paris and quite enjoyed it! Of course, the real value of the tour was having a guide to explain the various historic sites we visited. Using the Segway without a guide, while a novel way to tour, wouldn't have been as good IMO.

The Segway units are not difficult to master, but the tour company provided a short lesson (about half an hour) on how to control them. There are several different colour-coded Keys, and each one provides a slightly higher speed limit (we were started with the "green" keys as I recall, but graduated to the "yellow" keys by the end of the tour - there's a red or black key that allows for higher speeds, but only the guide was using that one). The biggest challenge is learning how to go over curbs, as if one leans too far forward there's the possibility of falling over. In paying for the tour, a mandatory deposit was required in case of damage to the Segway.

I believe the same firm provides organized Segway tours of Paris and Budapest, but I'm not sure they operate in Rome.

Good luck!

Thanks Ron! I like those prices a lot more than what I saw at I Glide. Of course, theirs is a guided tour and these are just Segway rentals, but for going through Villa Borghese Park we don't need a guide anyway.

I found, such as it is, an Anglicized version of the Free Mobility website HERE. It's by AngloInfo.com, which looks like a pretty good reference for English speakers in Rome, with their motto "Life in Rome, in English!"