Anzio is a port town of about 55,000 people on the Tyrrhenian coast, an hour south of Rome by regional train, and it carries two histories that have almost nothing to do with each other. It was Antium, a Roman resort town where both Caligula and Nero were born and where Nero built a villa whose ruins are still falling into the sea at the end of the beach. And on 22 January 1944 the Allies landed here, and the four months that followed cost tens of thousands of casualties and are the reason the name is familiar to anyone who has read about the Italian campaign. Most visitors today are Romans coming down for the beach.
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What Is Here
THE 1944 LANDINGS ARE THE REASON MOST FOREIGN READERS KNOW THE NAME, AND THEY ARE ABSENT FROM EVERY PHOTOGRAPH IN THIS POST. That is worth saying at the start rather than leaving you to notice. Operation Shingle put Allied troops ashore here to outflank the German line south of Rome; the beachhead was contained almost immediately and held for four months of attritional fighting, and the casualty figures run to several thousand Allied dead and tens of thousands wounded or missing. What is here to see is the Museo dello Sbarco, the beachhead museum in the town, the Commonwealth war cemeteries at Anzio and at Beach Head a few kilometres inland, and the very large Sicily and Rome American Cemetery at Nettuno next door. Our images are the harbour, the market and the coast. The war is the other half of the place and you will have to go and look at it.
NERO'S VILLA IS ON THE SHORE AND IT IS FREE. The imperial villa at the western end of the seafront is a long run of brick and concrete vaulting collapsing into the water, with the so-called Grotte di Nerone beneath, and you walk to it along the front. It is unexcavated in any tidy sense and it is the most atmospheric thing in the town, particularly late in the day.
THE MARKET SITS AGAINST THE ANCIENT TOWN AND THAT IS THE SECOND IMAGE. Anzio's ordinary working life happens a few metres from Roman masonry, which is the normal condition of Italian coastal towns and is still the thing that makes them worth a day. The fish market by the port is the serious version: this is a fishing harbour before it is a resort.
THE PORT IS THE WAY TO THE PONTINE ISLANDS. Ferries and hydrofoils run from here to Ponza, and on to Ventotene and Palmarola, which is a genuinely good onward trip and the reason some travellers pass through Anzio at all. Sailings are seasonal and weather dependent, and the crossing to Ponza is a little over an hour on a fast boat.
THE BEACHES ARE DARK VOLCANIC SAND AND THEY ARE ROME'S. The third image is the breakwater and the tower. In July and August this coast fills with Roman families, the lidos are organised rows of umbrellas with an entry fee, and the free stretches are busier than they look in photographs. Out of season it is a working town with a long seafront.
NETTUNO IS A SEPARATE TOWN AND IS WORTH THE WALK. It runs into Anzio along the coast and has its own medieval borgo, a tight walled quarter of lanes above the sea that is considerably older-feeling than anything in Anzio itself. The train continues there, and so does the seafront.
When to Go
May, June and September are the best months. Warm enough for the sea, not yet or no longer at capacity, and the archaeology and the cemeteries are far more bearable without the August heat.
July and August are hot, humid and full. Lazio summers run into the mid thirties with high humidity, and Anzio in August is a Roman beach town at maximum: book accommodation early or come on the train for the day and leave.
October to April is quiet, mild and cheap, in the low to mid teens, with the museums and the villa open and the sea too cold for most people. Winter storms on this coast can be dramatic and the ferries are reduced.
If the 1944 history is why you are coming, come out of season. The cemeteries and the museum deserve an unhurried morning, and the anniversary in late January is marked locally.
Getting There
By train from Rome, which is the easy and obvious way. Regional services run from Roma Termini to Anzio in around an hour and continue to Nettuno, frequently enough that you can decide on the day. The station is a short walk from the seafront.
By car, roughly an hour from Rome on the Pontina, and parking in August is the main frustration. Note Italian ZTL restrictions in historic centres generally, which issue automatic fines months later.
By air into Rome Fiumicino, about an hour by road, or Ciampino.
In town you walk, and to the cemeteries you do not. The seafront, the port, the villa and the museum are all walkable. The Beach Head cemetery is several kilometres inland and the American cemetery is in Nettuno, so those want a car, a taxi or a bus, and that is the one part of the day worth planning rather than improvising.
The Anzio Packing List
Humid Mediterranean summers with little shade, a long exposed seafront, unexcavated ruins underfoot and cemeteries that ask for a quiet hour.
Our merino base layers are 100% Australian merino at 17.5 micron, and a long sleeve merino wool base layer for women handles Lazio humidity better than cotton for the reason that matters on a day like this: fine wool moves moisture away and keeps working damp, so the walk along the front at noon and the air conditioned museum afterwards do not turn into a clammy afternoon.
For the summer, a long sleeve sun hoodie and a wide brim sun hat are the right protection on a seafront with no trees and a beach with no natural shade, and a insulated water bottle is worth carrying because Italian towns have public drinking fountains and the walk to the villa and back is longer than it looks.
Walking shoes with grip for the villa ruins, which are uneven brick and rubble with no made path, and for the breakwater, which is wet and algae-covered at the waterline. A quick dry travel towel for the beach, which packs smaller than anything a hotel will lend you.
A Marmot PreCip Eco rain jacket for the autumn and winter months, when this coast gets real weather and the ferry to Ponza is the first thing cancelled.
Not linked and worth packing: SOMETHING TO COVER YOUR SHOULDERS for the churches, which is expected in Italy rather than optional; SOMETHING PLAIN AND QUIET IF YOU ARE VISITING THE CEMETERIES, which is a courtesy rather than a rule but a real one; CASH IN EUROS for the lidos and the smaller places; BEACH FOOTWEAR, because the volcanic sand gets extremely hot and the breakwater is sharp; AND SUNGLASSES.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
Essential Resources for Women in Anzio
Emergency numbers: 112 for police, ambulance and fire, free from any phone including a locked mobile, with operators who will find an English speaker. It is the single number across the whole European Union.
The FCDO publishes no advised-against areas anywhere in Italy. Its guidance concentrates on petty theft in crowded tourist areas and on the ZTL, the limited traffic zones in historic centres that catch drivers out with automatic fines months after the trip. Many parts of Italy lie on a major seismic fault line and the FCDO notes that minor tremors and earthquakes happen regularly. Learn what to do before, during and after one. ON THIS COAST THE EVERYDAY HAZARD IS THE SEA RATHER THAN THE GROUND. Italian beaches run a lifeguard and flag system at the lidos through the season and the free stretches are frequently unsupervised, with currents around the breakwaters and the harbour mouth that are stronger than the flat Tyrrhenian surface suggests; swim where there is a lifeguard and treat an empty stretch as swimming at your own risk, which in Italian law it largely is. THE RUINS ARE UNFENCED IN PLACES. Nero's villa is a collapsing structure on a shoreline rather than a managed site, with drops, loose brick and slippery concrete, and nobody is stopping you climbing on it. SUMMER HEAT AND HUMIDITY reach the mid thirties with no shade on the seafront. PETTY THEFT is what the FCDO concentrates on for Italy, and the realistic exposure here is the Rome train and the crowded August beach rather than the town itself: keep a bag closed and on you on the regional service, which is busy and stops often. AND THE ZTL will fine a driver automatically, months later, for entering a restricted historic centre.
US State Department travel advisory: the Italy advisory. Read the current level there directly rather than relying on a figure printed in any guide.
UK FCDO travel advice: gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/italy, and read the safety and security page rather than only the landing page, because that is where the substance sits.
Main hospital: The Ospedali Riuniti di Anzio e Nettuno serves both towns and has a pronto soccorso, the emergency department, so an emergency here is treated locally rather than in Rome, with the Roman hospitals an hour away for anything beyond it. Italy is in the EU, so a UK Global Health Insurance Card or an EU European Health Insurance Card gives you state-provided medically necessary care on the same terms as an Italian resident. That means the same ticket, the co-payment Italians make, rather than nothing, and it does not cover repatriation, so travel insurance sits on top of it. Italian public hospitals are good and the emergency department, the pronto soccorso, treats anyone who arrives. Pharmacies, farmacie, are marked with a green cross, are staffed by pharmacists who can advise and dispense for minor problems, and post a rota for nights and Sundays on the door. Tap water is drinkable across the country, including from the public fountains that are common in Italian towns.
Official health authority: the Ministero della Salute, the Italian health ministry. covers the national health service and the European health card arrangements
US Embassy: the United States Embassy in Rome.
Official tourism authority: ENIT, the Italian national tourist board. covers Lazio, and the municipal office publishes the beachhead museum hours, the war cemetery access and the seasonal hydrofoil timetables to Ponza
Takeaways
The 1944 beachhead is why you know the name. None of our photographs show it.
Nero's villa is free, unfenced and falling into the sea.
An hour from Rome Termini on a regional train. Decide on the day.
The ferries to Ponza leave from here and go first in bad weather.
Solo women safety assessment: Anzio is an ordinary Italian coastal town and an easy one to visit alone, particularly as a day trip from Rome. The seafront is busy with families through the season, the port is a working one, eating alone is entirely normal in Italy, and there is no district here a visitor needs to avoid. The realistic risks are the ones any Roman commuter manages: the regional train is crowded and stops frequently, which is where petty theft happens rather than in the town, so a closed bag kept on you covers it, and the August beach is a crowd like any other. OUT OF SEASON THE TOWN IS QUIET RATHER THAN THREATENING, and the long seafront is poorly lit at its western end near the villa, which is a reason to see the ruins in daylight rather than after dinner. THE PHYSICAL HAZARDS ARE THE SEA AND THE RUINS. Currents around the breakwater and the harbour mouth are stronger than the surface suggests and much of the free beach is unsupervised, so swim at a lifeguarded lido; and Nero's villa is an unfenced collapsing structure on a shoreline that nobody is managing for visitors. Add Lazio's summer heat and humidity and Italy's general seismic note and that is the honest list. 112 REACHES EVERYTHING across the European Union, free from any phone, and the two towns share a hospital with an emergency department.
Reading On
Anzio is an hour from the capital, so the Rome packing list covers the city most visitors here are based in and the trains that bring them down. For the other Roman sites within reach of the city, the Tivoli packing list covers Hadrian's villa and the Este gardens east of Rome and the Pompeii packing list the buried city further south, which is the comparison worth making: Pompeii is managed, ticketed and explained, and Nero's villa here is a ruin on a beach that nobody is looking after. Down the coast, the Naples packing list covers the city the Pontine ferries' bigger cousins run from, with the Capri packing list and the Procida packing list for the islands in that bay. On the other coast, the Vasto packing list covers the Abruzzo hill town above the Adriatic. For the country, the Italy packing list and the Italy travel guide for women carry the regions, the trains and the seasons in full. For why wool suits Mediterranean humidity better than cotton, read the guide to merino wool base layers for women. Every destination we cover is indexed at the travel packing guide for women, and the base layers are at the Roman Trail collection.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
