Advertisement
Published: June 15th 2013
Edit Blog Post
Queue ticket machine in Termini
The only queue ticket machine in the room and it has caption in English! So I finally visited Rome. Booked a very early morning flight so that I would have a full day ahead. All planned; at 11a.m I shall be heading off from my hotel for sightseeing. But no... First of all, you can't get out of Ciampino airport just like that. In the arrivals hall I bought a ticket for a bus to take me to city center. Then I walked out and saw a huge huge mass of people waiting. Buses come and go, but none of them is the company I got ticket for - tickets are not universal for all companies, though bus route is exactly the same for all... I get irritated waiting there, in the sun, and I want to actually buy another ticket and get out from there as soon as possible, but I don't know which bus company is coming next. There's no way to find out. Finally mine arrives, but it is packed with people and there is no space for me - I need to wait for next one. Next one is to come in 40 minutes.....
Then there is a traffic in the streets...
At tube station I want to buy a 3-day metro ticket. There are 2 machines in the tube station hall, 5 people queue and a beggar standing next to the machine. When it's my turn I realize machine does not work and does not want to sell me the 3-day ticket. The beggar tells me that this is because machine does not accept notes higher then 5 euro. 3 day ticket costs much more then 5 euro. It also does not accept any cards. Why is this on the list to buy then?? Beggar tells me to go to a ticket window.
Now the ticket window... Loads of people. After 10 minutes I realise there is actually a ticketing system for the queue. The machine is really cute - it has some English message on it and it looks like this: (pic)
There are 30 people ahead of me and I computed it requires extra 40 minutes to wait... Water is dropping from the ceiling from air conditioning onto people. Among the people there are 2 groups: 1) pensioners 2) nuns. And me. As I have time I observe the people and actually a funny scene just happens. There's a kind of homeless guy with loads of bags and he sits on a chair and leaves his bags on another chair. When it is his turn he just stands up, goes to the ticket window and leaves the bags. Now there is a middle aged lady who just grabs the bags and puts them on the floor and takes a sit. The guy turns around (while still being served) and now they start to argue loudly using a lot of gestures and some 'imbecile' words but in Italian. Nice intro to Rome.
When I leave the ticket window I notice there's a guy, rasta-reagge type, who seems to be picking up tourists from the queue and he tells them that there are many more ticket machines on the lower level of the station and that he can show them up how to use them. Indeed there were, as I learned later. I don't think this guy is a tube employee... It looks there are people in Rome who earn on all this confusion and problems with buying tickets. It is a pity that no-one sorts this out.
Days later I had another issue with the infamous ticket machine: the machine did not accept any of 50 cent coins I had. I tried 3 and none was accepted. Notes I had were over 5 euro so not accepted either. I could not buy a ticket.There was no ticket window, and no tube employee in that station - so when machine does not work: either I shall jump over the gates or resign from my trip 😊 It was the time when I was in a rush to go back to airport. Having that experience I appreciate now why there's always someone standing around the gates in London tube...
As if it was not all, I still had some problems to sort out before I could head off to see Rome. So the hotel was nice and great and it had a safe box in each rooms, that I wanted to use. Now the safe box was not working properly and I called the reception. The receptionist told me she will send someone to have a look, but now she's the only one at desk so she can't leave and look by herself. Another half an hour gone... At least they sent some Armani-model looking guy in the end to help ;-)
All in all - instead of 11 am I was able to go and admire Rome only at 3 pm. How could I plan just 2 hours for arrival?? So the first lesson I had in Rome was that it is not going to be easy to hurry and stay in schedule ;-) Though I actually made a schedule for the first day only, so not a regrettable lesson.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.199s; Tpl: 0.009s; cc: 9; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0954s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb