Every major city has a hop-on hop-off bus tour these days. I generally pay them very little attention. Or do I? Actually, in the last few years I’ve made increasing use of them and I’ve concluded that actually I’m a bit of a fan.
They’re one of those things that we tend to disregard. Wherever we fall on the tourist-traveller spectrum, those buses are for tourists, not for us and we wouldn’t dream of using them. Until we do. I tend to travel around by metro or train. I don’t know why but buses feel more mysterious. The route is just as strictly defined as the metro one, I know, but maybe because it’s on the road and it isn’t a straight line from one stop to the next, or maybe because road conditions can force them to divert, or because they have so many more stops than their rail equivalent, I just feel like my chances of getting where I want are significantly less by bus than by metro. The trouble with the metro, of course, is that you can’t see any of where you are while you’re travelling around.
The first time I used it was in Edinburgh one afternoon when I found myself at a loose end in the rain. I have no idea why – I’ve only ever been for the Fringe and the Fringe doesn’t take afternoons off and yet I had nothing to do, so I hopped on the bus. I stayed dry for the next hour or two and I got a guided tour full of facts that had completely passed me by. Had I been in Edinburgh any other time of year, I might have stumbled upon them but when all you do is go from one comedy show to another the entire time you’re there, you just don’t see the city and while it was hardly a revelation, it was an interesting and educational way to spend an afternoon while also avoiding the bad weather.
Possibly the best use I’ve ever made of it was in Gozo. I had a long weekend in Malta in January 2019 and I took the ferry over to Gozo. Now what? The public transport system operates as a hub and spoke from Victoria: if I wanted to go from A to B, I’d have to take a bus into Victoria and another one out, which would double the number of bus journeys used up on my prepaid transport pass and would waste a lot of my one day there. So I stood at the port looking at the buses and debating what I wanted to do when I spied the hop-on hop-off bus. There’s no better way to see Gozo than this. It would take me directly from one interesting place to another without incessant trips back to Victoria and given how much those multiple bus trips would cost, was probably a more cost-effective way of exploring the island. I could jump off whenever I liked and get on the next bus that came along by just waving my ticket and I’d get commentary in English about what I was seeing. The only way to see Gozo that would even come close to that efficiency would be hiring a car, which would cost twice as much, with no commentary and I’d never know where I was or what I wasn’t seeing behind a hedge or stony path. Short of chartering your own private tour bus where you don’t have strangers sitting behind you, there is surely no better way of seeing somewhere like Gozo than the hop-on hop-off bus.
I’ve also used them in Rome and Moscow. It was pouring with rain in Rome and I’d seen the main sights – I’d gone there specifically for the Sistine’s ceiling and I’d very much enjoyed the Colosseum but I’d also hunted out the Trevi Fountain (I mean, it’s nice but did it really merit those kinds of crowds?) and the Spanish steps (… they’re just steps?) and the Pantheon (ok, I liked that one) and so I used the bus to avoid the rain and to get a broader overview of the city. And to see the city. As I said, I use the metro. My view of places like Rome is a bit like that of a mole – a lot of darkness and then pop! Here’s a thing! And then back below ground before pop! Here’s another thing! So one thing the hop-on hop-off bus accomplishes for me is showing me more of a place than I’d see just walking to somewhere from its nearest metro stop.
Saying that, actually I made quite a lot of use of the trams in Rome so I did see some of it.
In Moscow I just thought it might be educational to see more of Moscow than the area around Red Square. The bus I jumped on really only did a big circle around Red Square so I saw nothing that I didn’t see on foot over those few days but on the other hand, I got it for free. The conductor said she’d come upstairs in five minutes to collect fares when we departed so I sat with my wallet in my hand and she never turned up. It meant I couldn’t hop off because I didn’t have a ticket to hop on the next but then it didn’t show me much that I hadn’t already seen. I don’t remember about Rome but Moscow had at least three routes and the bus I’d hopped on happened to be running the shortest and most popular route and I got a nice city map out of it, which is now in my scrapbook.
I guess my point is just that sometimes it’s not a bad thing to drop the Serious Traveller thing and make use of the tourist infrastructure. I notice people are always happy to take a walking tour but when you plonk that tour on a bus, suddenly it’s a thing to be avoided. Obviously, you should go beyond the bus tour (where it’s possible, which it wasn’t on Gozo) and get to know the city up close, on foot, but I think it gives a good overview and helps you start putting together a mental map of the place. And so what if it makes you look like a tourist? You are a tourist. Might as well use the thing that’s designed to help you get to know the place you’re visiting.
