Villa Bianchi

Off the beaten path sightseeing in Rome.

That was our alternative idea for this port of call when renting a car to visit Viterbo turned out to be not so viable. The problem was that the agencies closed by mid-day on Saturdays and would not allow us to drop off after hours. Bus and train service to Viterbo took two to three hours … longer than we were willing to set aside for public transportation. A private taxi for the day was over-the-top expensive … drivers preferring the more expensive charters to Rome.

So, the siren call of Rome won out over exploring somewhere we’d not been to before …. was the easiest to accomplish by train. Although we’ve spent 4+ weeks in the Eternal City, we were sure we could find some new-to-us places to visit.

[By the way, this is mostly a “tips to get from Civitavecchia to Rome by train” footprint … in case you want to skip reading it.]

It was 7:15a when we left the cabin and walked down the gangway. We were docked on the land-side pier, so getting to the shuttle buses that take visitors through the busy port to Della Pace — the shuttle station just outside the port — was easy enough.

Since it was so early, and there were just six of us on the bus — all heading to the Civitavecchia train station — the driver did us a favor. Instead of taking us to Della Pace, he offered to take us to the port gate by the castle, which put us within a 5-10 minute walk of the station. He more than deserved the tips we all left to thank him for the favor.

(It’s so nice to be in a port where we are familiar with the logistics. But things do sometimes change. In this case, I noticed that the public buses that take visitors from Della Pace to the train station now come right up to the terminal, so that would have been a good alternative if the shuttle had not worked out.)

There was a stiff breeze off the water as we walked along the waterfront to the train station. We were glad to have our rain jackets with us to use as windbreaks. The walk was brisk and refreshing.

Instead of going into the station to buy our tickets from the vending machine, we went to the Ho-Ho office that sells train and tour ticket combos … next door to the station … just follow the “Buy Train Tickets Here” signs. The line is shorter — non-existent today — and they are happy to sell train tickets only as well. R/T for €9/person … open tickets so we could take the first train out that fit our schedule and not have to worry about making a particular train on the way back.

Alas, the 8:01 train to Termini departed within a minute or two of our arrival. As it was on binario [platform] 4, we could not get to it in time. Darn! The next train wasn’t until 8:54a. Nothing to do but validate the tickets and make our way to binario 4 using the underground passage.

We were sitting there when the foursome we had traveled with on the shuttle, waved at us from another platform off to the side … near binario 1. Turns out that after we checked the departures board, another train had appeared on the list … this one a regional train that would take 20 minutes longer. Since, we would have had to wait at least that long for the 8:54a train anyway, we rushed, hopped on the 8:37a train, and off we went.

We were lucky with our seats … in an upper cabin … two bench seats facing each other … no need to share with anyone since only two other passengers were up there with us.

The trip went by quickly enough and we arrived at Termini on time … a miracle in Italian train travel.Read more