Port of Civitavecchia is a busy cruise and ferry port located 80 km / 50 miles west north west of Rome and providing both passenger and cargo services to Italian and European destinations.
Civitavecchia , city (1991 pop. 51,201), in Latium, W central Italy, on the Tyrrhenian Sea. The harbor, favored by Trajan (early 2d cent. AD), is still the chief port of Rome. It also handles traffic for the Terni industrial area and is the main maritime link with Sardinia. Industries produce metals, machinery, chemicals, and cement. The arsenal in Civitavecchia was built by Bernini, and Michelangelo directed the final stages of the construction of the powerful citadel (begun 1508, nearly destroyed in World War II).
THE PORT
The port of Civitavecchia has some architectural interest since over many centuries its basic structure has never been changed. It is surrounded on the east by Forte Michelangelo, a medieval fortress built in 1535 by Pope Paolo III Farnese, but its construction was begun by Pope Giulio II della Rovere as a bastion against foreign invasions. On the city side the port is closed by the battlement wall built by Pope Urbano VIII in the central part of which you may admire the Vanvitelli fountain. Going further west, after the impressive, and recently restored Porta Livorno, you may see the old Rocca, a quadrangular tower built by Calisto III. On the other side of the passage which brings you to the old dock, the impressive wall built by Antonio Sangallo in the XVI century reaches the sea. The port has been for many centuries the hearth of the commerce as well as of the contacts of the peoples who lived on the shores of the "mare nostrum". Nowadays Civitavecchia enjoys modern and efficent rail, road and air links connecting it to the capital city of Rome and with the rest of Italy and the world. The port has now become a strategic point of entry of the main Italian tourist areas as well as to the cruise routes.