Civitavecchia Tour From the Port (Italy)

09 02 2020

Civitavecchia Tour from the Port, Italy

This is walk 3 of a seven day Mediterranean cruise. There was some planning involved, and some places were left out. Also the walks were kept short due to a time limit for embarkation.

After the cruise ship has docked (In this case the MSC Grandiosa), a shuttle bus takes you to the main bus stop.

This is a small circular tour of this old roman city.
First you make your way to the Santa Maria Dell Orazonie church then to piazza Leandra (which is in the heart of the old medieval quarter and the oldest square in the town. Here you will find the church of the Star.
From here you go to the market, then the archaeological site, then to the theatre – teatro Comundes Traianos, and then passing through the ghetto area to PiazzaAntonio Fratti, making your way to the church of the Virgin.

From here you go to the promenade and beach – Passeggiata Marinai D’Italia. This leads upto the old fort – Forte Michelangelo, then onto the Vanvitelli fountain. Then onto the Nave Romana Liburna, the roman walls and La Darsena Roman. Finely going through a gate back to the bus stop.

Some extra tourist information is included below.

Civitavecchia was born as a small Etruscan settlement, and in Roman times got for good the name of Centumcellae, when emperor Trajan (106 AD) realized that the rocky coastline with its inlets was the best place to build a big port. Centumcellae lived the period of maximum splendour in Imperial times, from 314 to 538 AD. Later, the city was under the comand of the Bizantine Empire, and then, in the eighth century under the milder government of the papacy. Most of the big city monuments in the port and in the city were actually comissioned by many Popes during that period. In 828 the city was occupied by Saracens, who destroyed it almost completely. Survivors found shelter in a small district in the Tolfa forest and founded a new town named Leopoli.
1. Piazza Leandra, the oldest square in the city, owes its name to an old legend whose main charcter is an old sailor called Leandro. Legend says that his words persuaded the inhabitants to go back to the sea to found again the old Centumcellae after the Saracen invasion.
In the center of the square, between two old buildings, there is a Medieval fountain turned on again in 2012.

In Piazza Leandra there is also the small and splendid Church of the Star (1688), one of the oldest churches in Civitavecchia. The church is site to the Archconfraternity of the Gonfalone, founded by Saint Bonaventure in 1274. Tradition has it that Saint Bonaventure, before imbarking to Lyon, drop in to see Civitavecchia where, joining the request of numbers of faithful, founded a confraternity that took the name of Company of the Gonfalone.
Inside it is possibile to admire many works of art, for example, the valuable wooden crucifix of the Corpse of Christ, that every year, on Good Friday, is carried along the streets of Civitavecchia during the suggestive Procession of the Corpse of Christ.
From Piazza Leandra, we recomment you to get to the close Piazza Aurelio Saffi through the suggestive 'Archetto' (Little Archway) passage that runs under the old walls (ninth century) and gives name to the district with the same name. From this passage, you can visit the wonderful Church of the Prayer and Death, absolutely the oldest in the city.


To get to the second stop of our route, you will only have to cross Via Giosuè Carducci up to the crossroad with Via G.Mazzini and you will be in front of the lively stalls of the Market. It will sound banal but we remind you that if you want to visit the market in its full swing you should go there in the morning! After 1 pm most of the stalls, peddlers and sellers put away their merchandise.
The Market of Civitavecchia, also known as San Lorenzo Market is located in the heart of the old city town, around Piazza Regina Margherita. It is here where every morning the inhabitants of Civitavecchia come to buy fresh products like fruit and vegetables, as well as for the famous and blooming fish market, flagship of the city all along.


Now from Via Doria go down the stairs that take you to Via Duca degli Abbruzzi until you get to the pedestrian area of Corso Centocelle. Go for a nice walk among the shop windows or take a short stop in one of the many bars that have tables on open air. There's nothing better than a relaxing break in a sunny day! Not far you will see the building of the Trajan Theater.


From the opposite site of the theater you can access, through Via Cesare Battisti to the last stop of our route: the old district of the Ghetto of Civitavecchia. The Ghetto extends around Piazza Fratti and is absolutely one of the most busy areas of the city.
The area surroudning Piazza Fratti is always very busy both during the day and at night due to the presence of many restaurants, bars, pubs, pizzerias. There is also a useful wi-fi hotspot.

This route ends here! If you still have some time, get to Viale Garibaldi and go towards the promenade by the sea to visit the Seashore of Civitavecchia or, if you prefer, you can visit at the Old Port with all its many monuments.

A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY
You must first of all know that the port of Civitavecchia, has been known since ancient times as the Port of Rome, and is also known as Centumcellae. Built by command of emperor Trajan between 103 and 110 AD, it ows its name to the presence inside the dock of a hundred clefts (cento anfratti) used for collecting goods.
Still today it is considered a top-level engineering model: the work, actually, does not take advantage of the natural shape of the coast, but it radically modifies its essence folding the construction of multiple artificial elements that delimit a wide basin with shores, walls, towers and forts. To complete the work, there is a curved breakwater placed in front of both piers (Bicchiere and Lazzaretto) to allow the passage also to bigger ships.


Over the years, the base of the Roman structure has never been altered. The many Popes that followed each other, limit themselves to add monuments or to build new defensive structures, asking to do the works to leading personalities, such as Bramante, Michelangelo, Antonio da San Gallo and Bernini. To this fact we owe the works that are still today present in the port and that we will visit during our itinerary.

You can start from the imposing sixteenth-century building that takes the name of Fort Michelangelo: one the most important military architectonical structures of the Lazio coastline. Commissioned by Pope Julius II to Bramante to defend the port from the constant pirate incursions that, from the fifteenth century, threatened the security of the city. According to many sources, the building of the highest towers, the so-called maschio, was entrusted to Michelangelo Buonarroti, from whom it takes its name.
Fort Michelangelo is located in the East side of the historic port and with its imposing outline, it does not go unnoticed, even to the most absent-minded.


Near Fort Michelangelo, close to Molo del Bicchiere, you can admire the statue “Kissing in Memory of a Port”.
Ivana Puleo is the creator of the project. The statue was designed by the Marinelli Foundry, thanks to the contribution of private donors and operators in the maritime and port sector.
The monument, made in bronze, was created to remember people who left the port of Civitavecchia for war, often without returning.
It was created also to rebuild a “memory” lost on 14th May 1943, when a heavy bombardment devasted not only the historical Port Authority Office, but also a large part of the port area and the city centre, erasing centuries of history.


Behind the port, the Massive Walls of Urban VIII isolates it from the rest of the city. The Walls are a majestic brick work that encloses the charming Vanvitelli Fountain.
Sponsored by Pope Benedict XIV, the fountain is completely built from travertine, and represents the head of an old faun, from which mouth come out water.
It's one of the best preserved monuments of Port with the enigmatic gaze of the old faun who always manages to capture every visitor!
A bit further, to the West, there is Porta Livorno, old entry to the city, built by will of Pope Clemens XIII.
Thegate almost completely destroyed after the bombings of 1943, has been recently reconditioned and restored to its old architectonical splendour.
The gate ows its name to the fact that it looks towards the homonymous Tuscan city and it's the demonstration of the Church interest on the development of the Port of Civitavecchia, considered a strategic garrison on the Tyrrhenian Sea.


Near Porta Livorno, there is the Ancient Rock of Civitavecchia, a real castle, built around 1400 under the pontificy of Pope Callixtus III.
The Rock built vertically on the Roman dock, besides assuring the control of the port, it represented an important communication key point with Rome.
Also due to that, the Rock was the focus of several clashes between the Roman Empire and the Church until 1432, when Civitavecchia was conquered by Pope Eugene IV, becoming property of the Papal States.
Within the Darsena Romana of the Port of Civitavecchia, precisely behind the walls of the Old Rock, you can admire the beautiful reconstruction of a part of a Liburna, ancient war ship of the Roman fleet.
The galley, accurately life-size reproduced grandezza naturale (scale 1:1), is a result of the hability and mastery of Commander Mario Palmieri, director of the experimental archeology department CANS LANS, who has been involved for years in the study and reproduction of Roman ships, according to the building techniques and technologies of the time.

If you proceed ahead along Calata della Rocca, you find yourself inside the Roman Dock, the innermost and oldest part of the Port of Civitavecchia, a small port of rectangular shape, in the past protected by the walls of the Old Rock and today communicating with the rest of the port through a passage dug into the rock.
Designed almost 2000 years ago by the great architect Apollodorus of Damascus, the Dock served mainly for the Roman Ships of the imperial fleet to stop and restock.


Continue now along Calata della Rocca passing by the fishing boats and you will find yourselve next to the big roundabout with the statue of emperor Trajan in the middle.
To get to the last stop of our itinerary, walk alongside the walls on your left until getting about to the opposite side of the Rock on the Pier San Teofanio.
Here, on your right, you can admire one of the most evocative and old monuments of the city: we are talking about the Fortino di San Pietro better known as Molo del Lazzaretto.