Rome to Civitavecchia

October 28, 2023

Tourist day and then onto the overnight ferry

Another few sleepless hours overnight. Sigh again. But not the fault of our hotel, which is blissfully quiet. I guess I’m just not quite adjusted to Euro time.

After breakfast, I stored my panniers in the left luggage room and walked to the Colosseum to meet up with a pre-booked three hour tour that included the Palatine Hill and Forum as well as the Colosseum.

I only spied one old Fiat 500 in Rome. A classic.

We had a very engaging tour guide who grew up in from Sardinia. The scale of these Roman ruins is mind blowing. Since I seem to be the last person I know to visit Rome, I won’t attempt to describe them. But I’m glad I watched Mary Beard’s BBC documentaries and recommend them to anyone wanting some light history of the place. The construction of such structures 2000 years ago is almost incomprehensible. And then the whole collapse of not just the empire but the population too…

Needs no caption? Despite the crowds, it was a must-see for me.

The Forum area from Palantine Hill. This whole area has been excavated since the 1800s. Rome street level is much higher.

Sue didn’t go on the tour because she’s already visited the Colosseum in the past. Instead, she went on a nice walk of her own design, including seeing the Trevi Fountain, Borghese Gardens, and Spanish Steps.

Cool to see that modern infrastructure is stamped SPQR, an abbreviation for Senatus Populusque Romanus, is an emblematic abbreviated phrase referring to the government of the ancient Roman Republic.

After my tour Sue and I met up at our hotel and went for gelato before heading to the nearby Trastavere train station.

Having never taken my bike on a European train, and having read other peoples tales, I was a bit nervous. But we had loads of time to get to our ferry at Civitavecchia. Good thing, because the computer refused to sell us a bike ticket from Trastevere to Civitavecchia. So instead, we changed tracks and headed to Rome Termini, the main train station. The train we were on had a bike car with loads of room to hang bikes up by the front wheel. And to our surprise, our first train trip ended at Termini, and then left 20 min later backtracking along the exact same route, then going to Civitavecchia. The computer system still wouldn’t sell us a bike ticket, but we decided to board anyway, knowing that there were multiple bike spots and the train would be un-busy. It seemed more like a computer glitch than a capacity issue. We didn’t ever see a conductor, so Trenitalia is none the wiser and there was no need to explain ourselves.

We arrived in Civitavecchia in plenty of time for a very good pizza dinner that was 3 minutes walk from the ferry dock, or so we thought. We got to the gate, and it turned out we had another 1 km to walk through the docks area. Fun stuff- it was dark, there were loads of fishing boats, net repair yards, and we weren’t quite sure if we were on the right track. But indeed we were - we entered the passenger terminal, went through security with no other passengers in sight, and then walked onto an apparently very quiet ferry - not many people and the vehicle bay had lots of space. We were on the Superman themed ferry. There were only a couple of trucks visible and a few people settling in the lounge for a night on the couches.

Wandering through the ferry dock area. Where is everyone?

My bike was parked for the night in the staff break room/control room on the vehicle deck. We had a great inside cabin - no point in having windows on an overnight ferry, we figure.

Our comfy and clean ferry cabin. Fully equipped with a toilet and shower.

After getting settled on the ferry we went up to the lounge in hopes of catching the rugby World Cup finals. But Italian ferrygoers were watching The Voice - Italy, and apparently had zero interest in rugby. So we trundled off to bed.

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