Charming Civitavecchia

The name of this place is Civitavecchia, which literally means “Old Town.” It is pronounced chee-vee-ta-VEK-ee-ah. There has been a village here since before anyone can remember. An Etruscan town stood here before the Romans, and another before the Etruscans. The Roman Emperor Trajan, a very effective forward-looking leader just after the time of Christ, realized that Rome would need a larger and deeper port than the one at the mouth of the Tiber River named, appropriately “Ostia,” which in Latin means “mouth.” Tons of grain were being shipped into Rome daily to feed a million mouths. The Emperor commissioned his favorite architect, Apollodorus of Damascus, to build the port here. He devised a plan with two large “welcoming arms” to surround a large harbor dug out by the hands of slaves. These structures were uniquely designed as a network of arches stacked on top of one another to make a series of what might be called cells. The Roman structures are still visible alongside of the modern piers now in use.

Today the town that has grown up beside the harbor gives a good representation of a typical Italian town forty miles from Rome. It contains the beautiful cathedral of St. Francis of Assisi and a National Museum of Archaeology, which catalogues the artifacts from the many Etruscan tombs found in the city. The is also a well maintained fort designed by Michaelangelo that is still an active post of the Italian Army. Another fortress, built by the Romans, presides over the harbor. Bette Maynard Franken and I saw the cathedral, and then we stopped at a delightful little coffee shop for a sweet roll and an espresso. Bette popped into a shop to purchase a lovely little tea towel to add to her collection. If you ever come here hope you won’t rush off to Rome without taking time to discover Civitavecchia, a little Italian jewel hidden in plain sight.Read more