by : Jack Reider

Since the end of the jubilee of Rome held in they year 2000, the majority of Rome, in cooperation with the Coast guard of Fiumicino, agreed that the river of Rome, the Tiber deserves more attention for its historical importance.

In fact since that year it has been inaugurated to the boat entrepreneurs the competition to apply for licenses and permissions to perform cruises on different parts of the Tiber .
As many people do not know yet, not all the Tiber river is navigable, for the presence of marble steps, remains of old roman bridges and other hidden treasures like lead anchors.

It's so weird to see how Rome is no longer noisy when you go down the travertine steps to join a cruise tour. In fact the white marble walls to protect the city of Rome against the floods from the Tiber river were built during the period of the unification of Italy at the end of the 19th century. These shields are long 6 miles and provide in assuring the security of the city against bad weather and insisting rain.

That Rome was indebted, if not for its origin, at any rate for its importance, to these commercial and strategic advantages of its position, there are accordingly numerous further indications, which are of very different weight from the statements of quasi-historical romances. Hence, arose its very ancient relations with Caere, which was to Etruria what Rome was to Latium, and accordingly became Rome's most intimate neighbour and commercial ally, hence the unusual importance of the bridge over the Tiber, and of bridge-building generally in the Roman commonwealth. In this sense, then, certainly Rome may have been, as the legend assumes, a creation rather than a growth, and the youngest rather than the oldest among the Latin cities.

The Tiber is also the third biggest river of Italy after the Po and the Adige that flows in the romantic city of Verona .
The river of Rome has also a very important island, the Tiber Island ( isola Tiberina ) that has the shape of a boat because it remembers the transportation by boat of the sacred animal ( a snake ) and of the worship of the god of the healing Aesculapius from Greece in the IV century BC. The scholars says that this animal jumped off the boat and settled in the Island as signal for the Romans of the place where they had to built the sanctuary dedicated to the god of the healing.

Today this famous Island is connected to Rome with two roman bridges of the II century BC which allow pedestrians to cross very easily the side of the jewish synagogue with Trastevere.
Cruising the tiver river today means to visit three parts of Rome:

1- from Ponte Marconi to Ancient Ostia, famous roman colony and strategic salt harbor for the roman ships arriving from the Mediterranean sea;
2- From Ponte Risorgimento until the Tiberina Island with the possibility to see also the bridge wanted by the same pope who built the sistine chapel, sistus IV
3- From ponte Umberto cruising to the northern districts of Rome, with the possibility to admire a wonderful panorama of the dome of saint peter's basilica designed by Michelangelo in the renaissance period.