$&?@! Rome taxis

Despite all the great night life, despite the fact that restaurants don't open until 8:30 pm...Rome public transportation shuts down really early. The metro stops running at 9. The buses stop at 11:30. There apparently are night buses which run through the night, but it took us until our third or fourth day to figure out the system because everyone we asked seemed to know about the night buses, but no one seemed very familiar with them.

Our first night out, we wanted to taxi back...only to find that it was extremely difficult to get a cab in this city. I then whipped out my Lonely Planet...only for it to tell me the same thing. "Forget about catching a cab on the fly; go to a Taxi stand." (My rough paraphrase.) But we couldn't find a taxi stand...and after an hour of waiting, walking back and forth, attempts to phone taxis, debates whether or not to walk, Ed finally wandering into an intersection and stopped a cab at a right light. He was pointed the other way, but the cab driver was gracious enough to take us home.

Our second night out was even worse. It was the night from hell. We had stayed out and wandered from the Piazza Novena to the Piazza del Popolo...to the balcony on Pinic Hill (or something like that) to get a photo of Rome at night....no taxi...and we ended up somehow at the Vatican. (The Vatican is quite nice at night. Empty, except for a handful of stuck tourists like ourselves and lots of Vatican police. (Random fact for you from the Lonely Planet: the Vatican is one of the smallest countries in the world, with a neglible population, but it has one of the highest crime rates, way higher than Rome. It's mostly all petty crime, however, pickpockets and the like. Apparently the last homicide was in 1998.) Anyway, of course all this was extremely frustrating...and after an ill-fated attempt on the wrong bus, we ended up asking advice from some kids at a Taxi stand and later a police lady at the Vatican. Both were super compassionate, and both let us know about the taxi strike...and told us to forget about trying to get a taxi. No taxis today and tomorrow. The police lady said to walk....and this is what we did.

Our third night, we made sure we caught the last bus home, even if it meant missing the last part of the Italy-Germany game. We heard about Italy's last two points on the bus. Point 1 was indicated by our stopped bus in front of a restaurant where men in suits were jumping and screaming like little boys. Point 2 we heard about from a girl who had a cell phone on the bus; someone was relaying to her every move, and she shared this with the rest of the bus. We could tell that Italy had won by the impromptu parades down the street, people screaming and honking, waving flags...well into the night....it would have been nice to see those 2 points, but it was still fun.

Our fourth night...we became masters of the Roman public transportation system. Ask us. We can tell you. We caught an elusive night bus home.