Forget the Vespa: Making Your 2 Wheels a Bike in Rome
Bikes at the ready on the Piazza di Spagna.
CAESAR, clad in a bedsheet toga, lighted a morning cigarette next to a centurion wearing a plastic helmet. Both were leaning against a railing on the slope above the Colosseum. But before anyone snapped their photo, I had coasted 300 yards to the Colosseum’s deserted eastern plaza, where it was easier to conjure the lions’ roars and cheering Romans across 16 centuries. Veni, vidi, bicicletti — I came, I saw, I cycled.
Rome Travel Guide
Bicycles are a good way to visit the Colosseum.
Subways don’t run through the old part of the city, cabs are often stuck in gridlock, and walkers quickly come to rue the fact that Rome was built on seven hills. But for bicyclists, the Eternal City offers eternal rewards. Rome is, after all, a city of contrasts, best appreciated via rapid mobility between medieval alleyways and airy piazzas, oozing marshes and sycamore-lined heights, crumbled antiquities and Baroque expanses.
Although the city’s hills, old cobblestones and dense streets can make biking difficult for some, it’s now easier than ever to enjoy the sights from the perch of a bicycle seat. The number of bicycle lanes and rental shops and the indulgence of Rome’s otherwise aggressive drivers make biking in Rome convenient. Also, the municipal government occasionally bans private motor traffic in central Rome for a day, making the city a biker’s paradise.
“Bike riding has gotten more popular due to the city’s antipollution politics,” said Alessandro Piccione, a Roman engineer pedaling along the Tiber immaculately dressed (of course) in a blazer on his way to work. “I don’t just bike working days, but weekends, too. It saves a lot of time and trouble parking.”
The downside: he’s had two bikes stolen in the past year.
I biked through the city on a busy late-summer weekday and was instantly hooked. I started that morning from my hotel, the Hassler, which crowns the Spanish Steps.
The doorman lent me one of the hotel’s elegant black bikes, and I was off for what I thought would be a short ride through the leafy pathways of the Borghese Gardens, the Roman version of Central Park. But once I started coasting down the glamorous Via Veneto from the park toward the Colosseum, I knew this was the best way to see the city.
Using the bike lane that runs along the east bank of the Tiber through the entire city as my main artery, I darted back and forth between major sites and monuments, seldom more than five minutes of pedaling from the river.
Getting lost was fun, too. Picking my way through the labyrinthine medieval alleys around the Via dei Coronari, I was suddenly hit by the blinding sun and the unexpected vastness of the Piazza Navona, where in the first century crowds of 30,000 cheered chariot races.
After pedaling around the pedestrian square and its Bernini fountain, I swooped back into the darkness of an alley and returned to the sunlight at the Piazza della Rotonda alongside the huge dome of the Pantheon, still intact after 19 centuries.
Then it was back to the Tiber, and within five minutes I had darted into another alleyway leading to the cramped 16th-century Jewish Ghetto before emerging once again into the openness of the Campo dei Fiori. In all, a day of rapid light and shadow with a couple of great meals thrown in.
Rome’s usual traffic jammed almost every major road. But it’s easy to get into the flow: just follow the flocks of scooters that zip between the creeping cars like ranch dogs amid cattle. When pedaling in Rome, do as the scooters do: get to the front at a red light to avoid the crush of cars. When the lights turn green, get over to the right to let the cars pass you.
BUT bikes have plenty of advantages over scooters — like access. Metal bars prevent motor vehicles, but not bicycles, from crossing the elegant Ponte Fabricio, which, since 62 B.C., Romans have used to cross to Tiber Island.
In Trastevere, the lively neighborhood west of the river, most alleys are open only to pedestrians and bicyclists. Zooming around the outdoor cafes and stalls was a bit like flying through the trench of the Death Star, only with the scent of glorious food mingling in the air.
The best part of the ride was the Via Appia Antica, the ancient road — now a regional park — lined with Roman tombs and ruins southeast of the city. These old patches of flagstone once reverberated with the sounds of legionnaires and chariots; my bike became a gentle coda to this ancient symphony.
Rome is courteous to cyclists; unlike in New York, not a single car honked at me all day. The only problem was securing my bike at museums and churches. Most places don’t have bike racks, so I had to chain my bike to banisters and such, once drawing a polite rebuke from an elderly concierge.
Toward evening, I was chaining up the bike behind a cafe at the Piazza del Popolo, the elliptical Baroque square inside Rome’s old northern gate. A waiter spotted me and waved his fingers in mock scolding.
“This is how we do it here,” he explained, walking my ride to the edge of the sidewalk by an empty table. He gingerly propped the bike up by leaning the pedal on the raised sidewalk. Then he sat me down for an al fresco meal of Roman proportions, well deserved after wheeling through 27 centuries.
VISITOR INFORMATION
RENTALS
There are several excellent places for renting bikes around Rome, many offering a selection, from mountain bikes to tandems. You’ll need to leave behind a passport or some other form of documentation.
While the current exchange rate means that Italy is expensive for American visitors, bike rentals are still a bargain. Standard prices start at 4 euros ($5.60 at $1.40 to the euro) an hour and 12 euros ($16.80) a day. Some choices:
Bici & Baci (Via del Viminale 5; 39-06-482-8443; www.bicibaci.com), two blocks west of the Stazione Termini.
Danilo Collalti (Via del Pellegrino 80/82; 39-06-6880-1084).
Bici Pincio (Viale della Pineta; 39-06-678-4374) in the Borghese Gardens.
You can also arrange to have rental bikes delivered to your hotel. The Hotel Hassler (Piazza Trinità dei Moni 6; 39-06-699-340; www.hotelhasslerroma.com) offers guests free use of its bike fleet.
BIKING THE VIA APPIA
The headquarters for the Parco Via Appia Antica (Via Appia Antica 42; 39-06-513-5316) is two miles from the Colosseum, outside the Porta San Sebastiano, and offers bike rentals (3 euros an hour for the first three hours, and 10 euros a day). They have a helpful and detailed brochure featuring interesting bicycle itineraries (online at www.parcoappiaantica.it). Biking the Via Appia Antica is especially nice on Sundays, when it’s closed to motorized traffic.
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