If you happen to be visiting Rome by cruise ship, you may be surprised to find out just how far it is from the pier to the city – Rome’s port is the town of Civitavecchia, between 45-50 miles (72-82 km) away from Rome by car. You can pay for a private car transfer (around 70 euro per person), but if you like saving a significant amount over cruise ship transfers and/or want to explore Rome more independently, the train is a great option. But, how do you do it?
Assuming your ship is in port on time, it will be set to arrive at 7:00am or 8:00am (or 9:00am in some cases). There’s a Regionale (regional, for those non-Italian speakers) train from TrenItalia that leaves around the :58 each hour. Typically, you should be able to get off the ship by around the :15 or :20 mark. The port really doesn’t allow pedestrians to walk in and out of the port, and as such they provide free shuttle buses that will take you from the pier to a drop off area just outside the port. If you put all this together, it means that if you get off the ship as soon as possible, you can make it to the train station with 5-10 minutes to spare. The train schedule has some long gaps in it – if you miss the train leaving at the end of the hour, all is not lost, but the next train likely won’t be for another 40 minutes.
If you follow what we did, you too can get to Rome an hour or two before most of your shipmates – in our case, this meant getting to see the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain and Castel Sant’Angelo before any crowds arrived. You’ll need to to walk about a mile (1.6 km) at the beginning, but it’ll pay off:
1. Disembark (we recommend first off the ship!)
As mentioned above, get off the ship as soon as they’ll let you. We were lined up waiting, and were probably two of the first dozen passengers off the ship, and it really didn’t require getting to the disembarkation point of the ship more than 5-10 minutes ahead of time (lines quickly formed after us).
2. Hop on the port shuttle
As mentioned, the port doesn’t allow pedestrians, and even if they did, you really wouldn’t save any time and would be dealing with gates, fences and barriers to get where you need to be
3. Get dropped off just outside the port
The shuttle bus will drop you off in a parking lot area just outside the port. They’ll likely have a tent set up and signage letting you know that there’s a shuttle bus you can take to get you to the train station (I can’t recall the cost, but think it was a few euro). Here’s the thing: it didn’t depart until around 7:45am, meaning that if you wait for the shuttle, you’ll miss your first train option to get to Rome. Here’s where that walking pays off!
4. Get walkin’!
It’s really not a bad walk, and a great way to wake yourself up! (or whatever you need to tell yourself if you don’t like early morning exercise). If you walk quickly like we tend to do, you can make it in around 15 minutes. You can probably walk at a normal pace and get there in 20 (as Google believes is the case, see below), but the quicker you walk, the more time you have to get your train ticket and get to your platform.
5. Buy your BIRG ticket…but not from there!
Except for the IC (InterCity) trains, the train ticket to Rome is around 7 euro. However, since you are planning to tackle Rome as an independent traveler (look at you go!), there’s a much better option than just a round trip ticket: The BIRG day pass ticket! It’s there for tourists to take advantage of, as it gives you a round trip to Rome, plus unlimited use of the public transportation in Rome (trams, subway, buses). This will come in handy later when you try to decide if you really want to walk from the Vatican to the Colosseum or would rather take the subway. Now, you don’t have to worry about getting nickel and dimed!
Just before you get to the station, you’ll see a sign for the BIRG ticket, train tickets to Rome, and tourist information (and, like we saw, a line of unsuspecting tourists lined out the door). Don’t fall for it! This isn’t the train station ticket office, it’s actually a tourist / travel business that is selling BIRG tickets with a markup. Keep walking another 50-100ft and make a left into the station, and then look left: there’s the real ticket window, with a helpful ticket agent. Ask for the BIRG (“beerg”) ticket, which runs €12 per person. They sell so many of these, they’ll have them ready to hand to you upon paying.
6. Check the signs and head to the platform for the REG to Roma Termini
You likely won’t go all the way to the last stop (Roma Termini) as the train line wraps around Rome and drops you off at an inconvenient platform at Termini, so instead choose San Pietro or one of the earlier stops (remember, you can always connect to buses and the subway after you leave the train). There will only be one REG to Roma Termini at this time, and it should have a time listed of :58 or so for its departure time.
7. Validate!
You need to validate your ticket BEFORE you get on the train! If you don’t do this and a conductor comes by, they can charge you a fine for failing to do so. It’s easy – look for the big yellow boxes with a card slot and markings showing you where to insert your card for validation. Simple!
8. Board your train
If you’ve made it this far and are under 40 minutes from when you walked off the ship, congratulations! You have now just beaten over 90% of your shipmates to Rome. Enjoy what breathing room you get, it’ll be gone before you know it!
When you return
Depending on your ship, you will probably want to catch the train that gets you back to Civitavecchia by 4pm, 5pm or 6pm. Just as with your departure, the return will take about 45 minutes by train, plus your 20 minute walk back to the shuttle. Just incase there’s an unforeseen train problem, we recommend figuring out which is the latest train you can take and get back before the boat departs, then pick the Regionale train that leaves at least an hour before that. You won’t want to be stranded in Rome (or do you?) Getting back a little early means you can take a more casual walk back to the port shuttle, and check out the beach area, shops and Forte Michelangelo (pictured below)
