RS Rome Tours - Bus Fires

Charlie, Have a wonderful trip! I know that you always enjoy your Rick Steves' Tours. Make sure you report back to us how it goes.

pack a twig and some marshmallows?

seriously though - really not making light of it but unfortunately these things sometimes happen. I was on a bus in London a few years ago - one of the yukky bendy buses - when it caught light, smoked for maybe 5 minutes, and then got flame. By that time everybody was off. As soon as the first person shouted, the driver stopped the bus and opened all the doors.

That was during a period of several bendy bus fires.

They were horrible buses to ride. London got rid of all of them. I don't know where they ended up. Somebody has got them.

Rome has thousands of buses and probably won't want to lose any but most tourists probably won't notice the loss....

Charlie,
I took this tour last March - April and had a wonderful time. My guide was Susannah, if she’s your guide, say hello for me.

This isn't about Rome buses burning up but about their buses. I was recently in Rome and had horrible bus riding experiences. First, they allow too many people to cram into each bus which seems like a safety issue to me. I got pushed hard when a man tried entering an already too crowded bus and shoved me forward. Then he yelled at me. One person in our group got her purse pickpocketed in an overly crowded situation. Luckily, she didn't have her "deep storage" there and only lost a small amount of euros. It is almost impossible to safeguard your spending money for the day when you are nose to nose with strangers. Never again. I'll walk or pay for a taxi.

I spent 10 days in Rome last month and we rode the busses often and never experienced any problems.
We always use our money belts and have never lost anything in 16 yearly trips to Europe.

If a number of random buses are catching fire, that's an indication of either old or faulty equipment or parts. But like the dried up Christmas tree and trash issues, it's emblematic of Rome's incompetent management of its physical assets. They need to do more inspections and replace bad parts if they're seeing a pattern like this.

One usually doesn't keep daily spending money in a money belt unless you plan to take it out of your pants just to buy a gelato. As I understand it, a money belt is for deep storage.

As kaydee has noted, you should not keep daily spending money in your money belt. I keep mine in a brestpocket with a zipper. I only access my money belt in a secure location such as my hotel room or in the stall of a bathroom.