Civitavecchia
Civitavecchia calls itself “The Port of Rome” and today is known mostly for its large port, cargo and cruise ship operations. It’s the embarkation port for many cruises and a stop for many others, as it’s convenient to Rome (45-60 minutes by fast train, car or bus).
We passed through here on a couple of cruises over the years, remembering it as a very unattractive, dusty port with poor infrastructure.
Given that poor impression, we never thought we’d be staying here on our own boat one day, but on our current itinerary, the geographic convenience of this port could not be ignored.
We had planned to spend 2 nights here and 4 nights at Roma Ostia -- further down the coast at the mouth of the Tiber. We had to adjust our itinerary to avoid travelling on some excessively blustery days and ended up staying in Civitavecchia for 6 nights. We then travelled two legs in one day, skipping Roma Ostia entirely in order to make up for it.
All the way in the port, which is about 1 ½ miles long, there is a small, harbor called Darsena Romana. It is the original port built by emperor Trajan in the 2nd century. The fishing boats and the Coast Guard keep their boats here. There is also a floating pier with a sailing club (Amici della Darsena Romana), which is where we stayed. Not a fancy marina. Not a marina at all, in fact… but entirely adequate and inexpensive. Best of all, the people there were REALLY friendly and kept a close eye on our boat while we took a 2 ½ day side trip to Rome.
Amazingly, with all the cruise ship and cargo traffic in this port, there is no requirement for pleasure boats to call Port Control. We did just to be on the safe side and our VHF call was met largely with bewilderment. The Port Control thought we wanted them to help us find a dock for the night in the inner harbor, Darsena Romana. We explained that we were simply asking permission to enter the port, but they didn’t really get why. We’ve entered many smaller harbors on our voyage with strict port control/VHF requirements.
Civitavecchia was bombed heavily during WWII and sadly, few historic structures remain. Nevertheless, there is a modern waterfront, as well as fine pedestrian streets and other nice places to walk around. Some of the nice waterfront areas have streets and sidewalks lined with lush trees. Unfortunately, these trees are Mulberry trees and the foot traffic was smashing the fruit and staining everything purple. Pedestrians were walking in the streets and everywhere else possible to avoid stomping through the fruit mess on the ground.
You can read more about Civitavecchia here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civitavecchia
CLICK ON PICTURES TO ENLARGE
About the pictures:
1 Welcome to Civitavecchia – the Port of Rome
2, 3 & 4 Royal Caribbean Vision of the Seas & Norwegian Epic were there when we arrived. Also Aida Cosma.
3 Remains of a bastion built centuries before. Darsena Romana is not far behind this
4 A picture showing where the fishing fleet drys and organizes its nets. This is in Darsena Romana, where we were moored.
5 An American military craft we passed on our way to the inner harbor. Don’t know anything about it. I’m sure somebody on TF will recognize it!
6 & 7
Forte Michelangelo, part of which was designed by Michelangelo. Built in 1500’s. It’s still in use by the military today.
8 Art in town
9 Leaving the port, we encountered the Costa Toscana coming in. They failed to radio us for permission first, so we had to wait. Also in the picture are Celebrity Beyond and Cunard Queen Victoria
