We spent four days just seeing the very top of the huge riches of Rome. The Vatican Museums, the Forum, Colosseum and Palatine Hill. An open topped bus tour. The Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain. Various slices of pizza, several ice-creams, very (very) sore feet. 137 photographs. We're only posting the one picture, of us beside the Arch of Constatntine and the Colosseum, to stand for it all.
Rome requires a different way of seeing. Every building, every sight, every perspective is full of different layers and events, epochal changes over the last three thousand years. So many different forms of government, such an array of art and propaganda. Rome is full of reinvention: the Colosseum built as a demagogic gesture, over the top of Nero's extravagances, now at the end of Mussolini's own imperial gesture of the road that cuts the Forum in two. The Sistine Chapel, painted against the Pope's original commission but famous from the moment of completion. The beautiful statues in the Octagonal Garden of the Vatican, mostly collected in the Renaissance - classical-Roman copies of earlier Greek originals.
We feel we've seen so very little of it; we are already planning our next forays into a city which will become emptier over the next few weeks. In the meantime, we return to the UK for a while, as the coffers need filling. The weather is still splendid here, despite several torrential thunderstorms, and neither of us is looking forward to the short, wet days of the UK in winter.
| Places and people |
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From the Porto Touristico, it's about one hour into central Rome. Although it sounds complicated, it's actually very simple.
From the boat you leave the marina at the southern end; by bike or on foot, this takes you up a pedestrianised slope onto the long promenade that runs along the shore. Turn left, ie back away from the sea and follow the road round. Take the first road on your right, where you will see immediately ahead of you a bus stop. From here take the number 01 bus, which runs about every 10 minutes from early morning to midnight. You will not need a separate ticket - see the comment on tickets below.
The marina gave us a rough map of Ostia, with bus-stop and station marked, and also two good maps of Rome, which have been very useful.
The other end of the 01 circular route, about 15 minutes away, is the station at Lido Centrale; the bus drops you right outside the station. Almost everyone gets off, and the driver turns the engine off.
Here you buy a ticket. Rome has an excellent system throughout the city (which includes Ostia); you buy a pass which covers all metro, tram, suburban rail and bus. One euro gets you 75 minutes (enough to Termini station), and 4 euros gets you all day and is very good value. If you're coming back to the Lido buy one of these (unless you want a multi-day pass). The ticket machine is right outside the barriers and will give instructions in English.
Also in the station is a small office which sold us a map of Ostia for 50 cents, and on the doors of which is displayed the bus timetable for Fiumicino airport.
Through the barriers, stay on that platform for trains to Rome. All trains through this station go there. (Coming back you simply get off, follow the crowd and emerge outside the station by the 01 bus-stop.) The stop at Lido Centrale is very short: get on the train sharpish!
The station Porta St Paolo in Rome is the end of the line. From here you can catch buses or metro all over Rome. (Avoid our mistake: we decided to walk to the Colosseum, and a boring trudge along busy roads it was!) A bus map can be bought from tourist offices or tobacconists. We got a little one of central Rome but also a bigger one covering the whole suburban area which we've found helpful. There are only two metro lines in Rome (A and B) which cross at the main railway station of Termini, and in rush hour the trains are horrendously crowded. The bus network runs everywhere, and is also crowded but has good views.
To get back to Porta St Paolo, be aware that it has several possible names. On the metro map the connected station is Pyramide. This landmark (a 6th century tomb in the adjoining cemetery) is conspicuous from the buses and a useful marker. On the bus stops, looking to see if a bus is going to the station, the names Pta St Paolo, Pyramide, Ostiense or Ple dei Partigiani will all take you where you aim to be. Ostiense station is another suburban railway, connected to St Paolo via the Pyramide metro, and Partigiani is the square in front of it. From Ostiense you can get a train to Fiomicino, and in theory to Ciampino airports, though we haven't tested either. (See note on airports below.)
The main railway station in Rome is Termini, started in 1870 by the Popes when they still ran Rome, and completed by the new Republic in the early 1950's, after war, kingdoms, facism and the confinement of the Papacy to the Vatican. It's also the main (but far from the only) bus station.
Airports represent a particular challenge. The nearest and biggest is Fiumicino, just the other side of the Tiber from Ostia. You can get a bus direct from Ostia and it's on the train line. However, nobody flies from there to Stanstead (our preferred destination this time), so we are flying the dreaded Ryanair from Ciampino. There is a train station called that, but we are advised it is still some way from the airport. Alternatively, get a bus from Termini; we spent some time trying to find the appropriate bus stop but never did locate it; we'll update the info when and if we fly in that way and find where it drops us! So, taking marina advice, we are taxiing to the airport from the marina. It will still be a cheaper journey than flying to Gatwick or Heathrow and travelling to Ipswich, but it isn't a cheap ride. If you can arrange to go via Fiumicino, that would be preferable.
Coming back into Ostia, or for a first arrival by public transport, it's simply a matter of getting the 10 bus back from Lido Centrale. It heads north(ish) and you will see ahead of you a big block of flats still under construction. At night, you see nothing, because there aren't any lights or habitation! The bus stops, then turns left, and left again very soon after, essentially marking the U at the end of its run. You get off at the second of these stops, take the few steps back to the road you've just turned off, and turn left towards the sea. After about 20 paces, the slope down into the marina opens up on your right.
| Life afloat (containing pilotage notes) |
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So we made some frantic phone calls. The wonderful Manuela at the Porto Turistico found us a berth for six months - actually at slightly less than Nautilus Marina. We motored back out of the river, round the corner and into this spiffing harbour. It has been built inside two breakwaters, and a lot of care has been taken to try and minimise swell. This matters a lot, as it has a poor reputation for swell, and we shall see how well the curved walls and large spending beach actually work. (Right now, it's very calm!)
It can't be as bad as our first winter aboard, on a pontoon right by the seawall in Brighton. Nor even Toulon, where you are constantly rocked by ferry wash.
It is a bit soulless, but it has all facilities, other liveaboards (even English-speaking ones!), excellent security, and easy public transport links into Rome. Our plan is to get Roaring Girl set up for the winter months (stow the kayak, get the bicycles out), and then start exploring the Eternal City.
| Life on Roaring Girl |
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As you go further up the river, both banks are lined with rafted boats. Thousands of them, up to four in each raft. This picture is taken at the eastern end of the isola which runs for about 1.5km in the centre of the river, and ends just before the main motorway bridge which closes the river to anything sporting a mast.
The isola itself has yachts rafted along it. We went up the north side of it, and chickened out of the south side when the depth got to 5m even before we entered the channel proper. Otherwise we carried at least 6m pretty much all the way to the bridge.
Most of the yards lining the banks are private, many of them clubs. You might wangle a berth for a while with fluent Italian and good connections, neither of which we have. We had booked ourselves into Nautilus Marina, about a third of the way up the island, on the north bank. We arrived just before dark and were told to raft to a boat and we'd sort out the paperwork in the morning. In the dark, the place was rather eerie. We found the toilets, but no shower. Only one other boat (a posh motoryacht on the hard) seemed to have anyone aboard. A peek outside found a busy road with no signs of shops, houses or any other life.
In the morning we met the helpful Oliva, with whom we had been exchanging emails. How do we get into Rome? Ah - you go the bridge, about 2km away, and get the bus. And to get to the bridge? Walk, or take the dinghy. Laundrette? No. Shower? No. Clearly this would not be an easy place to spend much time. It's not their business model: these marinas are really boat warehouses, where nobody expects to spend their leisure hours. Instead they untie their lines and go. It's a shame really as it's quiet, very sheltered and the island is pretty. No-one seemed to be anchored anywhere in the river, which isn't that wide; it would need a mooring to reduce your swing, and we don't know if it is permitted.
| Life afloat (containing pilotage notes) |
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We had booked a place at one of the marinas on the Tiber itself. At its mouth, the river (Tevere in Italian) is called the Fiamare Grande. This distinguishes it from the Fiomicino canal which cuts through the back of this cape and joins the river further inland. We have read of many boats which have wintered in the canal, but we had not been able to get a place there. Also it is very close to Fiomicino Airport, and, although we had not seen it commented on, thought that would be unpleasant.
This lighthouse is now out of use, showing how little large shipping now uses ports on this coast. There is a big ship anchorage, and some offshore platforms, in the vicinity, but inshore it's only small fishing boats and pleasure craft.
Entering the river is very straightforward in calm weather. There was a red beacon marking the channel, and we saw least depth 6.3m. The banks are lined with substantial shacks and fishing gantries, but its not an impressive riparian entrance to such a great city, more its neglected back door. Rather like London's attitude to the Thames in that respect!
| Life afloat (containing pilotage notes) |
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