Porto di Anzio (Anzio Harbour)
The fishing boats come back before the tourists are awake, and if you walk down to the harbour early enough you can watch the catch being sorted on the quay — silver heaps of the same seabass and bream that have been landed here, in some form or another, since Nero decided this stretch of Lazio coast deserved a proper port.
Anzio Harbour is a working place that happens to be beautiful. The mole curves around a basin of calm water, ferries slide out toward Ponza on summer mornings, and the restaurants along the port streets have been cooking fish soup — seppie, octopus, clams, mussels, chilli — long enough that the recipe has a name: alla portodanzese.
💛 What travellers fall for
People who come back tend to arrive on the early train from Rome Termini, walk the ten minutes downhill to the water, and claim a table on the port side before the day heats up. The fish soup at lunch is the thing to order — not the tourist menus, but wherever the fishing crews themselves seem to eat.
The story behind Porto di Anzio (Anzio Harbour)
Nero ordered the harbour's construction after 59 CE — a project scaled to match his nearby villa — but the coast's shallow, silting conditions made it a perennial engineering problem. The port that exists today traces its bones to a reconstruction completed in 1700, commissioned by Pope Innocent XII.
The modern municipality was founded by Pope Pius IX in 1857 under the name Porto d'Anzio, which it held until 1885. By the end of the nineteenth century the town had reinvented itself as a seaside resort, and on 16 March 1925 a submarine telegraph cable was inaugurated here, the first direct transatlantic link between Anzio and New York. Then, on 22 January 1944, more than 36,000 Allied troops and 3,000 vehicles came ashore on this same harbour — an operation that reshaped everything the town had been before.
Good to know
Trains from Roma Termini take about an hour; the station is a 1.3 km walk to the port. Ferries to Ponza run up to nine times a week in summer (roughly 80 minutes). May, June, and September offer the best balance of warmth and space. Winter ferries to the Pontine Islands run from Formia instead.
May through early October is the reliable window: daytime temperatures run between 22°C and 30°C, with August at the top of that range and the sea reaching around 26°C. November is the wettest month by some margin; winters are mild but grey, and the ferry to Ponza stops running from Anzio.
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What travellers say about Porto di Anzio (Anzio Harbour)
Beautiful port 40km south of Rome!! Nice view with landscape of Nettuno city and mountains!! Delicious fish restaurant along the port side!! A place to visit for a walk or to have a nice lunch!!! All time of the year especially on weekend is a nice idea to come here!! 🇮🇹👍🌅
A town at the sea, with a stretch of beach. Its 1 hour from Rome by train. The beach is nice, but as often in Italy full of people. The town itself has not much to offer
A very nice little port town! Very family friendly, lots of nice places to eat and lots of kids playing in the streets all night. There’s not much else though. Also there are no -none whatsoever- taxi’s. Ever. And the buss schedule stops around 9pm. so easy to get stuck here unfortunately. But its a enjoyable little place
Assumption day celebrations are great in Anzio
What a lovely place.
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