day trip from rome: santa marinella

Of the many questions I get asked, “Where should I go for a day trip out of Rome?” is one of the most frequent. There are the obvious answers: Tivoli, Ostia and even Orvieto. These all combine short train trips with seriously good sightseeing.

The thing is, I usually don’t go on these trips myself. I live here, so my weekdays are filled with work (I know, my work doesn’t really seem like work, but that’s another story) and my weekends are usually spent catching up with chores. But I’ve been playing hooky this week with my friend Evan, and yesterday we headed to the seaside to have lunch with our friends Doug and Guido.

Santa Marinella is one of the string of little seaside towns that dot the coast just north of Fiumicino, before you get to the large port of Civitavecchia. The town was very chic and popular in the 50’s and 60’s, with people like Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman buying houses there. These days it’s a cute, quiet little town and easily reached by a local train. We hopped on at the Ostiense station and were there in under an hour.

I’d been there a few other times, to visit Doug and Guido while they were restoring the house they bought a few years ago, but had always just bee-lined for their place. This time we went to a cute little restaurant, L’Acqua Marina, right in the center of town, but with a view of the water from the terrace. Even though it’s November, it was about 80 degrees and we sat in the full sun. It was splendid.

Lunch? Fish of course. We were about a hundred meters from where the fishing boats come in and everything we ate was almost still swimming. Or crawling, as the case may be. After an endless array of sea food antipasti, Marina, the owner made us an incredible pasta with a huge local lobster. (She brought it to the table, so we could wave bye bye to it before it came back to us as sugo.)

I actually could have just stayed with the antipasti, they were so good. Breaded, stuffed cozze which I always love. Then big, light balls of fried white bait, which is hard to find unless you are almost sitting in the sea. Two kinds of insalata di mare, including one with olives and potatoes which was scrumptious. Fried sardines. But the best thing may have been the tiny bruschetta topped with stewed octopus




Towards the end of the meal, just when we were finishing the cold bottle of local white wine, the smell of carmelized sugar hit us hard. We were so full we really couldn’t think about dessert. But that sugar smell…..Thankfully, Marina, the owner, brought us out a plate of ciambellini, still hot from the oven and crispy.

A walk along the beach and we were back on the train, headed to Rome again. A perfect mini vacation. Let me know your favorite day trips outside of Rome.

Trains leave about every hour, from the Termini, and also the smaller stations of San Pietro, Trastevere and Ostiense.

L’Acqua Marina
Piazza Trieste, 8
Santa Marinella
In winter closed mondays evenings and tuesday.
0766-511 715