How to reach Rome from Civitavecchia (and back!)

If you are on a cruise and planning a shore excursion to Rome, or if your cruise has ended and you are disembarking in Civitavecchia and flying back home from the Roma Fiumicino “Leonardo da Vinci” airport, these simple directions will be useful to let you reach your destination with no stress!

Getting to Rome from Civitavecchia is really easy! Both cities are well connected by train, by bus and a stretch of the A12 highway Roma-Civitavecchia.
You only need to chose the most suitable option for you!

The Civitavecchia train station is a crucial connection for most of the tourists arriving to the port (often indicated as the Port of Rome when in actuality Civitavecchia is roughly 70 kms north of the Capital!) as it actually allows to get to Rome in less than 1 hour. There are two ways to get from the port to the Civitavecchia train station: on foot and via a shuttle bus.

FROM THE PORT OF CIVITAVECCHIA TO THE RAILWAY STATION ON FOOT

Distance from the port: 1 km / 1.5 km (600 meters from Forte Michelangelo, 1.5 km from Largo della Pace)
Travel time: 10/20 minutes

From Fort Michelangelo exit from Varco Fortezza and take via Giuseppe Garibaldi, follow the directions to the train station.
From Largo della Pace pass the roundabout and take via XVI Settembre, proceed until the end of the street and turn right. Take via Giuseppe Garibaldi and follow the directions to the train station.

FROM THE PORT OF CIVITAVECCHIA TO THE RAILWAY STATION BY BUS

Distance from the port: 1.5 km
Travel time: 5 minutes

Go to Largo della Pace and take an “Argo” bus. Next to the “Info Point” there is an Argo office where you can buy the ticket. Buses going to the railway station run about every 20 minutes.

A one way ticket costs € 2.00 (luggage included).

Note that from 11.50am to 2.20pm there is no service.

Tickets are available at the service center on Largo della Pace, at the pizzeria Mastro Titta (close to Largo della Pace, open daily 10-24) and inside the ADM Terminal, at news-stands and at the café inside the Civitavecchia Train Station.

CIVITAVECCHIA-ROME BY TRAIN

The Civitavecchia Train Station is directly connected to the main station in Rome: the train line you need is called FL5 and takes you to Roma Termini (Rome’s central railway station) and has intermediate stops at Roma San Pietro (closest to the Vatican Museums and St. Peter’s Basilica), Roma Trastevere and Roma Ostiense, among other stops. Most trains for the FL5 line depart directly from Civitavecchia from either “binario tronco 1″ or “binario tronco 2″.

Once at the end of the line, inside the Roma Termini station, look for the exit on piazza dei Cinquecento, just outside the main entrance – there you’ll see the bus terminals for the main city lines. Make sure you have a ticket (a single ride costs €1.50) to reach your final destination (check http://www.muovi.roma.it/ to find out which bus line is best for you). If you’d rather use the underground: the A line, B line and B1 line all intersect below the train station. To enter the subway, follow the directions marked with a huge “M”, or ask for the “metropolitana” (check out the full info on: http://www.atac.roma.it/). Remember that tickets need to be stamped the moment you board the buses, or need to be checked at the turnstiles before entering the subway system.

CIVITAVECCHIA-FIUMICINO LEONARDO DA VINCI AIRPORT

If you’re bound to be at the Fiumicino Airport, take the above mentioned train line and get off at Roma Trastevere or Roma Ostiense and change to the FL1 line that connects to “Fiumicino Aeroporto”. Trains will be announced as coming from Orte, Monterotondo or Fara Sabina. Similarly, the FL1 trains departing from the airport will show those three towns as destinations. The FL1 line can be used as well to get to Roma Tiburtina Station. Taking the FL1 line at either Roma Ostiense or Roma Trastevere provides a cheaper option in comparison to the express train for the airport that departs from Roma Termini (more on this below!) but be advised that the FL1 is a city trains making several stops before reaching Fiumicino.

Among many other public transportation options that are available, the train is surely the most comfortable solution to get to Rome from Civitavecchia (and vice versa!). If you don’t want a transfer with a tour operator, or a driver, we recommend the train.

To find out more about timetables, ticket prices, where to buy them and the different kinds of train available, read on and/or refer to https://www.trenitalia.com, the official site for the main train company in Italy (and the only one operating FL train lines in the Lazio region).

TIMETABLES

From Civitavecchia the FL5 train Rome-bound leaves approximately every 30 minutes during the working week.

From Roma Trastevere or Roma Ostiense there’s trains to the airport every 15 minutes during the working week. The ride is about 35 minutes and once at the train terminal in Fiumicino, you’ll already be inside the airport.

Please note that there’s less trains running on Sundays and during the month of August, so always check the timetable in order to have enough time to get to the departure gates, particularly.

HANDLING YOUR TICKET (AND NOT BEING FINED!)

Train tickets must be stamped at green machines mounted throughout the train stations – stamping must be done prior to boarding. The only kind of tickets that don’t need stamping are those done online or through the app. Inspector will be shown, in that case, the confirmation email from your tablet or smartphone.

PRICES

You can get your train ticket from the ticket offices, online through trenitalia.com or its official app (available on Android and iOS systems: needs a registration in order to buy tickets) and also from newsstands and at cafés inside the stations at Civitavecchia, Roma Termini, Roma Trastevere or Roma Ostiense. There’s also automated ticket machines at the aforementioned stations as well as the one in Fiumicino Aeroporto.

Regional Trains and Fast Regional Trains:

BIRG daily ticket: it is valid for a whole day and includes a round trip from or to Civitavecchia with unlimited use of public transport in Rome (but does not include the trek to the airport). It costs €12 and it is a very good option for whoever means to get around the capital for a daytrip. Take into account that every single trip costs €1.50, so it’s very good value for money!

Regional tickets: they can be used for both one-way trips and round trips but they don’t include public transports once in Rome, so while they are cheaper (a single ride to Roma Trastevere, for instance, is €4.60) they will oblige you to get more tickets for buses or the subway once in the city. The BIRG kind of ticket remains the better option, but we digress!
Regional tickets can be bought online, through the Trenitalia app, at vending machines, at ticket offices, at cafés inside the train stations.
Starting from August, 2016, travellers must specify the date on which they wish to travel, and tickets will only be usable on that day. Tickets will be valid for four hours starting from the moment they’ve been stamped at the green machines inside the stations, otherwise they will expire. The tickets you buy online are exempt from validation, though!

A nice guide about regional tickets can be read in English at http://www.trenitalia.com/tcom-en/Purchase/Regional-online-ticket-and-passes

Other trains for Roma Termini

Other types of trains also stop in Civitavecchia and provide a quicker option for getting to Rome, but are infrequent and of course more expensive than taking the FL5 line. On the plus side, they make fewer stops before they get to Rome: usually just the one (Roma Ostiense for Intercity trains, Roma Tiburtina for Frecciabianca trains). A single ride on Frecciabianca trains (AKA high speed trains) costs €15.50 for a second class ticket, or €20). Alternatively, there’s the Intercity trains: a second class one-way ticket costs €11 (first class: €15).

CIVITAVECCHIA-ROME BY BUS

Civitavecchia is also connected to Rome by bus, through the public transport agency COTRAL.

It is possible to get to the stop Roma Cornelia (Metro A) leaving from Civitavecchia, either at the end-of-the-line terminal called Dep.Cotral/Braccianese or from the stops Ospedale S.Paolo and Porta Tarquinia.

For passengers arriving to the service center at Largo della Pace, the most convenient stop is Porta Tarquinia, only 100 meters away. Take into account that from here there’s only one bus bound for Roma Cornelia every day at 14:10, stopping also at Ospedale S.Paolo.

Alternatively, from the end-of-line Dep.Cotral/Braccianese there’s one bus approximately every 30 minutes on weekdays, while during weekends and public holidays the frequency slows down to approximately one every hour. The end-of-line terminal is pretty far from the port and the nearest stop is V.Ambaradam located on via Terme di Traiano, about 700 meters by walk from Largo della Pace.

Leaving from Civitavecchia it will take roughly 1 hour and 40 minutes to get to the Roma Cornelia subway station and the ticket price for a one-way ride is €3,90 from Porta Tarquinia and €4,50 from Dep.Cotral/Braccianese.

Tickets can be bought at any tobacco shop and other sellers displaying the brand name COTRAL. For further information refer to the COTRAL company official site (http://www.cotralspa.it/).

If you want to get to Rome in a hurry and you don’t have much time, we don’t recommend getting the bus. COTRAL public service is much more useful to get to other destinations close to Civitavecchia, such as Tarquinia, Tolfa, Allumiere and many others.

CIVITAVECCHIA-ROME BY CAR

To get to Rome from Civitavecchia by car the easiest solution is to drive along the stretch of the A12 highway. About 70 km separate both cities, a distance that can be covered in approximately 1 hour.

Civitavecchia has two motorway exits, called Civitavecchia Sud and Civitavecchia Nord respectively. Today, the toll costs €1.20 if you’re southbouth and €2.30 going north.

Leaving from Civitavecchia towards Rome, you will find the exits to Santa Marinella/Santa Severa, Cerveteri/Ladispoli, Torrimpietra, Maccarese/Fregene until you get to the junction with highway A91 Roma-Fiumicino that will take you directly to the Leonardo da Vinci Airport in Fiumicino. Along the way you will find many parking areas with wide car parks, services, bars and gas stations.

Leaving the Port of Civitavecchia you will be at about 7 kms from the exit at Civitavecchia Sud and 5.5 kms from Civitavecchia Nord. No matter which exit you take, to get to Rome you have two options:

• take the exit Torrimpietra (toll €1.20) and continue along the stretch of State Highway Aurelia that connects with GRA, Rome’s ring road. If you exit at Civitavecchia Sud you will spend a total €2.40, while exiting at Civitavecchia Nord costs €3.50 (price for one way);
• exit at Maccarese/Fregene (toll €2.30) and continue along until the point in which the A12 cuts across Roma-Fiumicino Road. From there, you will obviously carry on towards Rome. If you exit at Civitavecchia Sud you will spend a total of €3.50, while exiting at Civitavecchia Nord costs €4.60 (price for one way).

If you don’t want to take the highway it is possible to get to Rome from Civitavecchia by car driving along the State Highway Aurelia. You won’t have to pay any toll obviously, but you will spend more time driving: about 1 hour and 40 minutes.

The only thing you are missing now is bookinf your tours in Rome!

Any questions? Ask away!