Plenty of coast, few berths and future projects that do not bode well. Some, like the port of Ponza, have been the subject of litigation for years, while others, such as the immense one in Fiumicino, appear irrational and harmful
by Paolo Viola* and Niccolò Volpati
In Lazio, just like in other regions, the numbers are a faithful x-ray of the situation. Berths in the area are 8,855, approximately half the number in Tuscany and slightly more than one-third of the availability in Sardinia or Liguria. The Lazio coast, however, is no small matter – to the contrary, it is longer than the Tuscan coast: as many as 361 kilometres against just 290. Compared to Liguria, Lazio offers 100 kilometres more coastline. There is, therefore, no high density of port facilities and moorings since the characteristic conformation of the territory has not favoured any significant development. Almost everything there in terms of facilities was built “at sea”, beyond the natural coastline or at the mouths of rivers.
Gaeta Flavio Gioia
Nettuno
In the opening photo, the island of Palmarola is a nature reserve. Thanks to its unspoilt appearance and the variety of its coastline, it is considered one of the most beautiful in the world. Cala del Porto is the only landing place on the island of Palmarola. The ancient harbour in the medieval town of Gaeta offers moorings for sailing and motor boats up to 25 metres long. The marina is equipped with all water, electricity, sanitation, mechanical assistance and night watchman services. Inaugurated in 1986, the Marina di Nettuno covers a total area of 3,000 metres of quays with 15 piers and around 1,000 berths.
The area of the mouth of the Tiber, close to the capital, plays the leading role. Here, the river and the Trajan’s Canal (Fossa di Traiano) – which is a sort of drainage canal – embrace the Sacred Island (Isola Sacra) and make up one single large harbour-canal, equipped with berths and shipyards. It is a pity that not much is generally known about the marvellous hydraulic-maritime works of the Roman era in this area, with the great Imperial Ports of Claudius and Trajan, and, above all, with Trajan’s survived and largely ignored “Hexagonal Port”, a jewel of maritime archaeology that is now completely abandoned.
The marinas of Lazio
Porto di Civitavecchia, Civitavecchia, www.portofrome.it
Riva di Traiano, Civitavecchia, www.rivaditraiano.com
Marina di Santa Marinella, Santa Marinella, www.marinadisantamarinella.com
Porto Turistico di Roma, Ostia, www.portoturisticodiroma.it
Porto di Anzio, Anzio, www.portodianzio.eu
Marina di Nettuno, Nettuno, www.nettunomarina.com
San Felice Circeo Porto, San Felice Circeo, www.circeoprimo.it
Terracina, www.viviporto.it
Sperlonga, Sperlonga, www.portodisperlonga.it
Porticciolo Santa Maria, Gaeta, www.portoanticogaeta.it
Base Nautica Flavio Gioia, Gaeta, www.basenautica.com
Ponza Porto, Isola di Ponza, www.ponzamare.it
Cala Rossano, Isola di Ventotene, www.viviporto.it
Ponza
The port of Ponza is the landing point for those wishing to reach the island, 21 nautical miles from Capo Circeo. It is the largest of the Pontine Islands, which include Gavi, Palmarola, Zannone, Ventotene, and Santo Stefano.
Fiumicino
The wait for administrative authorisations for the new port at Fiumicino adds uncertainty to the construction project, delaying a project that has been pending for fifteen years and has been criticised by many.
The Tiber is a mixed blessing. Except for the Marina of Rome, which is located in Ostia, there is no other marina capable of accommodating a significant number of boats in this area. And yet, the Tiber has the highest concentration of boats in all of Europe. Most harbours are small and take advantage of the concessions of the many yards overlooking the river. However, over the years, administrators have shown a lack of vision, allowing for a less rational development of marinas. Let’s say that the governments and governors who have succeeded themselves over the past two thousand years have not lived up to the standards of Claudius and Trajan. A lack of care and attention accompanies the lack of vision and a rational development project.
One example is the bridge of the harbour-canal of Fiumicino, which has been broken for a few years now and no longer allows sailboats to transit. If the bridge no longer opens, it is impossible to reach the yards and berths that are further inland from the river, except with small motor units. More famously, but always in that same area, is the dire fate of the Fiumicino Marina, which has been the object of discussion for at least thirty years.
The project was initially conceived as a large marina for Roman pleasure boaters, but recently someone came up with the idea of a landing area for large cruise ships. The concession was given to Royal Caribbean, and the project was inserted in the government’s Jubilee Decree. It thus seemed to proceed at a fast pace, and just a few months ago, the area on concession was fenced off, with several protests from citizens and authorities alike, headed by the city mayor. The reasons behind the resistance against this project are many. First and foremost, due to the concession. Why is it a single concession that includes both the marina and the port for cruise ships? It would be more logical if they were two, assigned to two distinct entities. But instead, everything has been transferred to the cruise ship company. Also, just a little further north lies the port of Civitavecchia, where cruise passengers who wish to take a day trip to Rome disembark.
Riva di Traiano
The Porto Turistico Riva di Traiano, in the southern area of Civitavecchia, is a private marina covering an area of 25 hectares and has approximately 1,200 berths.
Civitavecchia is the second-largest port in Europe for cruise ships, and it is a public port. So why does a public entity give a concession to a private entity, thus competing against itself? Additionally, Fiumicino would be even more attractive for cruise ships, as it is located closer to Rome than Civitavecchia. When a cruise ship arrives, at least 5,000 people disembark, who tend to want to reach the capital in the shortest possible time. Traffic in the area around Fiumicino is already heavily congested, due to both the inadequate road network and the presence of the airport. Are we sure that adding coaches for 5,000 people is a rational idea? Moreover, “inserting the project within the Jubilee Decree provides a series of advantages from the point of view of the administrative rules concerning the application of environmental impact assessment”, as Pietro Spirito, former President of the Port Authority System of the Central Tyrrhenian, explained. More than a concession, it appears to be a sell-off to private entities to the detriment of an already functioning public harbour. Other concerns pertain to the entry of cruise ships into the harbour, as the seabed is seven metres deep and would need to be dredged to a depth of twelve metres.
“According to the project, outgoing ships, which, I remind you, are ships of 350 metres in length and 70 metres in height – says Mario Magliulo, former Commander of the Harbour Office of Fiumicino – will proceed in ‘reverse gear’ to reach an evolution basin, perform a 180 turn and then continue navigation into the open sea”. And despite the many doubts, the paradox is that this project is proceeding faster than others, precisely because of the Jubilee Decree, even though building a harbour, especially one like this, requires more than a few months.
Terracina
Terracina is a canal-port protected to the south by the Gregorian wharf and to the north by a reef wharf, inside which are two docks. Both banks of the canal are quayed and equipped with columns and mooring rings. Terracina can accommodate approximately 200 boats, up to 14 metres in length.
Civitavecchia, on the other hand, is a more notable example: a public commercial harbour used by ferries, cruise ships, and merchant vessels, as well as a marina – Riva di Traiano – that hosts over 1,100 boats. The mouth of the Tiber and Fiumicino do not provide the necessary guarantees to achieve something similar. So why not settle for just a marina project and disregard the one for cruise ships?
Marina di Santa Marinella is a well-connected landing place in Rome. It has 285 berths for boats up to 20 metres. The seabed is about 3 metres deep.
Lazio, however, does not just have a coast on the mainland; it also has the Pontine islands. And here, on the island of Ponza, you can witness a ritual that has already been seen in many other locations. The project for a marina, which is almost ten years old, is at Cala dell’Acqua, in the hamlet of La Forna, on the northwestern coast of the island. Initially, it was planned to provide 450 berths, but this was later reduced to 279 following opposition from the Public Works Department. The interesting aspect is that it provides for the recovery of the former Sapim area, which was previously used for mining. In addition to the recovery of an abandoned area, the CNR (National Research Institute) and Università La Sapienza di Roma have planned an infrastructure capable of generating electrical power through wave motion, thereby making the harbour fully self-sufficient in terms of energy supply. However, the Municipality of Ponza and the company Marina di Cala dell’Acqua Srl do not see eye to eye.
Ventotene
The port of Ventotene-Cala Rossano is one of the two ports on the Pontine Islands. The harbour has 40 berths available to accommodate boats not exceeding 24 metres in length and has a floating pier in the most sheltered part.
* Paolo Viola
Paolo Viola (Naples, 1936) is an engineer and urban planner specialising in harbour design, head of the “Marina & Waterfront” area at WiP Architetti s.r.l., ranked among the top 100 architecture and design firms in Italy. He founded the Master’s programme on “Sustainable planning and design of harbour areas” at the Università Federico II° in Naples and is the author of the book “Porti turistici, approccio multidisciplinare per una strategia progettuale integrata” (Marinas, a multidisciplinary approach for an integrated design strategy – Flaccovio, 2010).
(Focus Harbours – Lazio, 3rd chapter – Barchemagazine.com – Excerpted from Barche, October 2025)
