Unconventional Tours: Segway & Caffès In Rome

“Finding Segway Rome” was absolutely the best 65€ I spent in Rome.

It can be extraordinarily difficult to experience even a small part of the world in the absence of time. When I was abroad, I found it tempting to make up for this deficit by taking lots of tours in a short amount of time. After enough tours, the word itself can inspire visions of frustration, marathon length stands, herds of people, and finicky audio guides. Seeing a tour from a local’s perspective in my own city only exacerbates this feeling of distaste. I am from the Bay Area and when I meet people who have toured San Francisco, I can’t help but feel like they have been short-changed. I wish I could show them that there is so much more to San Francisco than Fisherman’s Wharf and cable cars.

Nevertheless, almost all travelers will have to deal with a shortage of time at one point or another. When faced with just a day or even just a few hours, it isn’t possible to delve into the social and cultural idiosyncrasies of a location that one would be able to do with more time. For this reason, tours are a necessary evil. They are an easy, quick way to get a general idea of a given area. After many tours, I have found that unconventional tours give the richest experiences. They hold a perspective that locals might have never possessed. In the end, a unique perspective is infinitely more memorable and satisfying.

My first experience with an unconventional tour was in Rome. With just a few hours of daylight left on my last day in Rome, a flyer and an impulsive nature compelled my two friends and I to book a Segway tour of Rome. We paid exactly 65€ a person for a two and a half hour “Rome by Night” Segway tour with a company called “Finding Segway Rome.” I had no regrets about the high price; it was absolutely the best 65€ I spent in Rome.

Our tour guide was a knowledgeable local college student. I was impressed with the professionalism and efficiency of the way they did business. After a quick introduction and practice run in a nearby park, we were up and gliding around Rome like seasoned Segway veterans. The guide brought us by all the major monuments and pointed out the smaller ruins and art along the way. Every time we stopped, our guide told us about the historical background but also included unique and offbeat facts and legends. All five of the people on our tour had already visited the Pantheon and Trevi Fountain, so there was flexibility to spend more time at the places we hadn’t visited yet. I sampled a “caffè” from the most famous coffee shop in Rome, “Sant’Eustachio,” and watched the sunset over the backside of the Roman Forum.

While I rested there above the Forum and the sky faded into dusk, I thought about all the strange looks our tour group had received that day from Romans and tourists alike. Wherever we traveled, peoples’ eyes followed with confusion, wonder, and occasionally scorn. Yet the more I thought about it, the more I realized that traveling by over cobblestones and through ruins is, in a way, a reflection of the city itself. In Rome there is a striking contrast between the new and the old, growth and decay, as well as the ruin and the high-rise.

I carried my thoughts over to the site of the Colosseum, our final destination. By night the Colosseum is an imposing monument – it is completely illuminated and the light carves out shadows in its crumbling façade. With the wind in my hair and increased confidence in my balance, I glided around its colossal circumference at ten miles per hour. With its bizarre new age, shape, and zero emission mileage, the Segway has become an emblem of the future. It may not look like it belongs in Rome, but it helped me realize how the modern can move to forge a connection with the past in unexpected ways.

*Segway Rome Tour: Make sure to call ahead and book in advance!

Article written by Lauren Goerz.