Sailing The Canals of Livorno (well, motoring)

26 July 2026 – Civitavecchia, Italia – Our lovely hostess Amanda drove us down to the port, and showed us where to go to enter the terminal and go through the boarding process.  We each had a smallish rolling bag and a day pack, so it was fairly quick and easy.  Civitavecchia has a very organized process, so soon we were in our cabin aboard the Oosterdam, another Holland America ship.

Our cabin was at the very front of the ship on Deck 7, directly under the bridge.  This had been one of the cabins used by a bridge crew member, who tend to be captains, or navigators, or second in command types.  So it was slightly larger than the normal guest stateroom, and slightly wedge-shaped since the front of the ship curves.  Our large window looked out over the bow of the ship, and we could see where we were going as we sailed every day. 

Our room also didn’t have the usual couch, but had a cushy chair and ottoman.  Normal closets and drawers, normal desk – but also a low dresser at the far end of the room.  My only small complaint was that the bathroom opened into the room with a sliding door – most staterooms seem to have a normal door that opens into the entryway, which makes the rest of the room feel larger.  As well as making it easier for people to turn on the light to go use the bathroom without waking the other person who is sleeping.  (Light switches are all outside the bathrooms, I guess to prevent any possibility of fires caused by water on electric outlets or appliances.)  Not a major issue, just a small issue.

But it was a very comfortable room for our two weeks, with a lot of space for two people.  (Oh, when the beds are set up as two twins, the electric plug in is behind one bed’s pillow.  That was my bed – and I did keep bumping into the bedside lamp which was almost overhead.  But I’m a little klutzy, so other people might not have that problem.)

We also looked out over the balcony on Deck 7, and I had hoped it might be opened for us to enjoy when we were in port.  It was never opened to us – but perhaps on days when the ship sails around a sight such as Stromboli, the volcanic island, or glaciers in Alaska or Antarctica, the deck would be open to viewers.  I don’t know, I just know it was never opened to guests on our particular cruise.

 

27 July 2026 – Livorno, Italia – I knew that Livorno had canals from a previous visit, so J and I agreed we’d both like to go on a tour of these canals.  I booked with a company online, who sent a note they received payment but that their machine or WiFi had problems, and we should print the PayPal statement as our ticket.  I printed their email confirmation as well, and J had all of this on her phone.  (Which, it turned out, wouldn’t show up without WiFi, but that’s why I had the paper as backup.)

J wanted to find the local library, to call her husband, check email, see if we could get the canal boat proof of purchase to show up, all that usual stuff we do with the internet running our lives.  There was a museum attached to the library, but it turned out to be closed on Mondays.  Oh well, the library had comfortable seating, and the strangest ceiling I’d seen in a very long time.  The roof was visible, basic corrugated metal.  But the structure of the roof, all the cross beams and rafters and struts and such, were all logs.  Raw logs, not stripped of their bark.  And obviously hand-hewn logs, all somehow tied together with various pieces of rope!  It all looked very old, despite the fact that the rest of the library was very modern with huge picture windows.

I found some information about the library, explaining that this was originally built in 1705 as a huge olive oil warehouse!  So those exposed rafters and all suddenly made so much more sense!

Livorno’s other claim to fame is that it was the birthplace of Amadeo Modigliani, the famous Modernist painter whose enigmatic portraits are both eerie and riveting.  (You can tell I like Modigliani!)

We walked a bit, across bridges and over canals, looking at buildings, old stone structures that I thought might be lighthouses along the canals, had a cold drink and chatted with the café owner – all the normal activities one might do in an Italian town.  Found the place to meet the Battello di Livorno boat, climbed aboard – I told the captain (in bad Italian) that I liked the window seat – he laughed, because there were no real windows, just seats down the center of the motor boat and also along the sides.  But the side seat is a window seat, right?

So, the canals of Livorno.  These are not natural canals, as in Venice.  These are man-made and hand-dug canals, the brainchild of the Medici family in the 16^th century.  The Medici ruled a large region of old Italy, and while they were mostly in Firenze (Florence), they needed a sea port for trade.  Livorno was close enough to become that port.  And then, Cosimo I de' Medici had a brilliant idea of digging canals so that ships could take goods to and from all the warehouses built around that end of the city.  It does make logistical sense, even if it seems like a grandiose scheme!  (His descendants Francesco I and Fernando I continued the project, so that it took a while to complete.

Not only were the canals dug all around the port area, they’re all lined in stone or brick!  It makes sense, since otherwise the sea water and tide would erode the soil along the banks of these canals.  But imagine how much work that would be!  Also, it would make sense to dig the canals inland a big, then line the sides with rocks or bricks.  Then dig out the last couple of feet from the end of the canal to the sea, and let the water flood all the lined canals.  I have no idea if that’s how it was accomplished, but it just seems the most logical way to create this network of canals.

And just to make things a bit more complicated, many of the canal walls have ramps along the sides as well as sidewalks along the lower portion – because obviously there needed to be a place to moor the boats, and for people to walk up to street level.  Also to either roll or carry goods to the warehouses, or use carts (animal drawn carts?) to also move whatever would be stored in those warehouses.  Barrels of olive oil are heavy! 

Today, we saw mostly motor boats and not really the same kind of commercial activity.  But these canals are a good 500+ years old, and still functioning!

This neighborhood of Livorno is called Little Venice (or Venezia Nuova) since it does resemble Venice on a much smaller scale.  The canals are dominated by the huge Medici fort, built in red brick with round turrets and occasional white marble carved insets.  Really gorgeous, and worth a visit for anyone who appreciates Renaissance architecture.  Quick sidebar – if you look at a fort and the building and towers are all square, with slanted or angled walls that are harder to climb, it most likely is from the Medieval period, roughly 500 to 1300 Common Era.  If the walls have rounded corners and edges, and only round towers, it probably is from the Renaissance era, about mid 1300s to very early 1600s.  There will be photos of lots of forts, so now you know what you’re looking at.

Our tour of the canals took just over an hour.  There was a running commentary in Italian, so I mostly got the gist of things and then had to look online for more details.  But the structures I thought might be lighthouses along the canals turned out to be definitely lighthouses – I could hear the word “faro” which also means lighthouse in Spanish!

Some of the canals went under either wide roads, or possibly right below a road – all we knew was that we went through some loooong tunnels!  However, there were ventilation “windows” on the ceiling of the tunnels, covered with wonderful lacy metal work.  Actually, the designs are surprisingly similar to rose windows in cathedrals.  And they cast wonderful shadows on the tunnel ceilings as we motored along below.

There’s a large statue where we got off the canal boat, called “Il Quattri Mori” – the four Moors.  The statue portrays the pirates who would invade the city – and of course extolled the Medici family whose walls, forts, and strength saved the city from being plundered by these pirates from Northern Africa.

It was a fun day, and great first day on our Mediterranean adventure!  Plus this made for great conversation at dinner when we shared a table – it seemed as if the other people on our ship didn’t know about the Livorno canals, and had no idea one could book a trip riding the canals!