The best things to do in San Felice Circeo & Sabaudia
Rome is close to so many beautiful places, but Sabaudia holds a different kind of weight for me. When I was a little girl, my grandfather on my dad’s side decided he wanted to buy a summer house near Rome, and he asked my mother’s father to help him look. Together, the two of them found a place in Sabaudia. I was four years old. That house has been our second home ever since, the retreat from the hot Roman August that generations of Italian families build into their lives without ever really talking about it, it’s just what you do. This is my complete guide to Sabaudia and San Felice Circeo, and it isn’t written after one nice trip. This is the place I’ve spent two weeks of every summer for as long as I can remember, and I want to actually tell you what that looks like, not just where to park.
Quick Facts: Sabaudia at a Glance
- Where: Lazio coast, about 100 km south of Rome, inside the Circeo National Park
- Distance from Rome: under 1.5 hours by car
- Nearest airport: Rome Fiumicino (FCO) or Ciampino (CIA), roughly 1.5–2 hours by car
- Beach status: Blue Flag (Bandiera Blu) certified
- Best for: beach days, a national park hike, lakeside dinners, and genuinely undeveloped coastline
- Best time to visit: June or September to avoid peak crowds; July and August are busiest
Where Is Sabaudia?
Sabaudia sits on the Tyrrhenian coast of Lazio, in the province of Latina, about 100 kilometers south of Rome. It’s part of a stretch of coastline known as the Riviera di Ulisse, at the foot of Monte Circeo, the limestone promontory that marks the southern edge of the Gulf of Gaeta. San Felice Circeo sits just around that same promontory, a few minutes’ drive away. The whole area falls inside the Parco Nazionale del Circeo, which means the coast here has stayed largely undeveloped, wild dunes and pinewood instead of the wall-to-wall resorts you’d find further north or south. Its beaches carry Blue Flag status, the EU’s mark of clean, well-managed coastline, which is part of why it’s stayed a genuine local favorite rather than turning into a tourist strip.
A Town Built on a Marsh
Sabaudia’s history is stranger than most seaside towns. This entire stretch of coast, the Agro Pontino, was marshland for centuries, considered unlivable and malaria-ridden. Mussolini’s regime drained it in the 1930s as part of a massive land reclamation project, and Sabaudia was built from scratch on the reclaimed ground in 1934, famously in just 265 days. The town center still shows it: wide, orderly streets and the clean, geometric lines of rationalist architecture, a style you’ll recognize instantly once you know to look for it. It’s an odd origin story for a place that now feels so unhurried, but it’s part of what gives Sabaudia its identity, a planned town that ended up organic anyway.
Summers in Sabaudia
Since childhood, I’ve spent so many summers in Sabaudia. It was always the same cast: me, my brother, my sister, and my best friend Ilaria, who’d come with her mom while our dads joined on weekends. We’d have breakfast, and then came the ritual before anyone was allowed near the door: sunscreen. Not the easy, spreadable kind you get today, the thick kind you had to properly massage in, the kind that left your hands a little white. Our mothers would call out “we’re leaving soon, put on your sunscreen” early enough that it had time to dry before we got to the beach, so it wouldn’t turn into a sandy mess the second we touched the umbrella.
At the stabilimento, our mothers would settle under the umbrella with their sunbeds while the four of us ran wild: sandcastles, swimming, long walks down the beach, endless rounds of foosball, and an almost ceremonial amount of time spent deciding on the after-lunch gelato, even though I always ended up ordering the same two things anyway, a cornetto classico Algida or a Magnum alle mandorle.
Around 5:30pm we’d head home, shower, get dressed, and start on dinner. Ilaria and I would go looking for flowers for the table while our mothers poured a glass of wine, and the rest of us played hide and seek in the garden until it got dark. Some nights we’d walk into town for pizza in the piazza, our mothers sitting, chatting, taking their time, while the four of us ran circles around the square and only sat down the second the pizza actually arrived. Other nights we’d end up at Cinema Augustus, the little theater in the town center. I still remember watching Troy there as a kid and falling completely in love with Brad Pitt, which tells you exactly how old I was and exactly how good that movie theater popcorn tasted that summer.
My grandparents would come stay for a few days around our birthdays, and my grandfather, who was the family photographer, always brought two copies of the gospel for each of us and a personalized photo album he’d put together himself. He’s the reason we have any printed photos from those years at all. We don’t really print them anymore, and I feel that loss more every year.
The rhythm changed as I got older, started having wine myself, and started bringing Luca along with me. Mornings became cornetti at the bar and a stop at the edicola for the Gazzetta dello Sport and whatever else my mom was reading that day, the two of them trading sections and arguing about politics and football under the umbrella. Evenings became sunset aperitivos on the beach, dinner by the lake, and canoeing around Lago di Paola while the light went gold. And there’s always, always the Italian style doughnuts from La Casa del Dolce in San Felice Circeo, which I will defend as one of the great unmemorialized joys of an Italian summer.
This is the version of Sabaudia I live now, but the version I actually recommend to you carries all of it underneath.
How to Get to Sabaudia from Rome
There’s a train and bus connection, a regional train followed by a Cotral bus, but I don’t recommend it. You’ll want a car regardless once you’re moving between Sabaudia, Monte Circeo, and San Felice Circeo, none of which are walkable from each other. Just drive. It’s under 1.5 hours from Rome with no traffic, and you’ll have the flexibility to actually explore the whole area instead of being stuck wherever the bus drops you.
The Dunes, the Lake, and Torre Paola: Sabaudia’s Landscape
What makes Sabaudia’s coastline different from most of Italy is what’s behind the beach. A line of protected sand dunes, some of the last truly wild dunes left on this coast, runs for roughly 15 kilometers, separating the sea from Lago di Paola, the saltwater lagoon that gives the beach club Le Dune its name. It’s this combination, sea on one side, dunes and pinewood in the middle, lake behind that, that keeps Sabaudia from ever feeling overbuilt, and it’s also what makes the sunsets here genuinely different: the sun drops behind the dunes and Monte Circeo rather than into flat horizon, and the whole sky and water pick up the color of the mountain.
At the point where the lake meets the sea sits Torre Paola, a coastal watchtower built in the late 1400s and early 1500s, later completed under Pope Pius IV in 1563. It was one of six towers built by the lords of Sermoneta and San Felice Circeo specifically to defend this stretch of coast against Saracen pirate raids, and it guards the mouth of the canal that connects Lago di Paola to the sea. That same canal area, known locally as the Darsena, has small bridges and waterways that thread between the lake and the sea, genuinely one of the prettiest, least expected corners of Sabaudia, and it’s also where you can rent a canoe or kayak and paddle straight from the lake out to open water.
Parco Nazionale del Circeo: Hiking, Canoeing and More
Monte Circeo National Park is one of Italy’s oldest, established in 1934 to protect exactly this landscape: the promontory, the coastal lakes, the dune system, and the pinewood forest known as the Selva di Circe. It’s not just scenery in the background of your beach day, it’s worth building real time into your trip.
Hike up Monte Circeo itself for panoramic views back over the dunes, the lake, and the whole stretch of coast, ideally in the morning before the heat sets in. Down at the Darsena near Torre Paola, rent a canoe, kayak, or paddleboard and spend an hour moving between the calm water of Lago di Paola and the open sea, which is exactly the kind of afternoon that ends up being the best part of the trip. If you’d rather stay on land, the roads along the dunes are flat and easy enough for a relaxed bike ride between Sabaudia and the Circeo promontory.
Best Beach Clubs in Sabaudia
Saporetti
Saporetti sits right next to Torre Paola, and it’s still the most beautiful beach club in Sabaudia. It’s also, at this point, the most crowded. If you don’t have an abbonamento (seasonal subscription), don’t count on finding parking inside, that’s reserved for subscribers, and even they sometimes can’t find a spot in high season. Your realistic options are to arrive by bicycle or get there early and park along the lungomare. If it’s a weekend between June and August, I’d honestly go somewhere else and save Saporetti for a weekday.
Prices are €70 for two sunbeds and an umbrella and you can reserve online if you want.
For lunch you have 3 different options: two bars and a restaurant. You can either go to one of the two bars, order something out of the daily menu written on the chalk board or head to Saporetti’s restaurant. If you’re a sunset lover, Saporetti’s St. Bar does a whole thing for sunset. You can enjoy it from your sunbed all the same.
Other beach clubs in Sabaudia
There’s plenty of beach clubs, from Oasi di Kufra to Le Dune, from Lilandà to La Spiaggia. The problem is always the same, the parking!
Day Trip to Ponza from San Felice Circeo
One of the best things about basing yourself here is that Ponza Island is genuinely within reach for a day trip. Ferries leave from the port of San Felice Circeo in the morning and return from Ponza around 6pm, which gives you a full day on the island without needing to stay overnight. Check out my full guide to Ponza.
Where to Stay in Sabaudia and San Felice Circeo
Le Dune, Sabaudia
Hotel Le Dune is my top pick if you want a beach club and a hotel in one, without ever needing to move the car. It has its own private beach, which matters here more than almost anywhere else on this coast: it means you skip the parking chaos and crowding that comes with the public-access clubs in peak season, and you can walk straight from your room to your sunbed.
Oasi di Kufra, Sabaudia
Oasi di Kufra is the other well-established option in the area, also with its own beach, and a solid alternative if Le Dune is booked or you want a change of scenery from one stay to the next.
Hotel Punta Rossa, San Felice Circeo
Hotel Punta Rossa is where a good part of my own childhood happened too, on the Circeo side of things. It sits right on the promontory with sweeping sea views, and it’s the kind of place where the staff genuinely remembers you between visits, which says something rare about how it’s run. If you want a base in San Felice Circeo rather than Sabaudia itself, particularly for a more upscale, quieter stay, this is the one I’d choose without hesitation. You can read my full review here.
Best Restaurants in Sabaudia
- Saporetti: The restaurant side of the beach club above. Their pasta alle vongole is the move, though the whole menu is strong. Eat on the open-air terrace overlooking the sea.
- Borgo dei Pescatori: On Lago di Paola. One of the most beautiful settings on the lake, a former fishing hamlet turned restaurant, with the kind of view that makes you slow down before you’ve even ordered.
- Fronte Mare: I haven’t personally been to Fronte Mare, but a friend whose husband is a chef swears by it, right on the beach and worth trying.
- Nina Cucina di Bordo: I haven’t been myself, but it’s been recommended to me and is worth checking out.
- La Caravella: Family-run, simple trattoria style. Ask for a seafront table when you book, and try to arrive around 8:30pm so you catch the sunset.
- Trattoria Buccia: just outside town and worth the short drive.
- Civico 90: the simple pizzeria we went to as kids, still exactly what it should be.
Aperitivo in Sabaudia
There’s nothing bette than staying at the beach and enjoying a corona beer as the sun starts to set. Most stabilimenti will put on some music as the sun starts to set, this is true for Saporetti and others Otherwise, cute places on the beach for an aperitivo are La Giunca (but not for dinner, just for a drink), Tiki Bar in San Felice Circeo or L’Incontro in the town center of Sabaudia.
Best Restaurants in San Felice Circeo
San Felice Circeo is a hilltop old town with sea views from nearly every corner. The historic center is really just one long road that leads up to a terrace at the top, home to the town’s famous tiki bar. It’s nothing special to look at, but it’s where everyone ends up at some point in the evening for a drink or an aperitivo, and it’s genuinely the place you’ll run into people you know. The town’s own beach below is long and calm if you want a change of scenery from Sabaudia.
- Hotel Punta Rossa Restaurant: This is where you go for something special. Large windows over the sea, occasional sunset views depending on where you’re seated, and genuinely excellent seafood. Stop by in the patio and order a sgroppino al limone made by Lorenzo after dinner.
- Sapor Proprio in Rada: Open kitchen, small outdoor space, seasonal menu. The shrimp tartare is the standout, and don’t skip the chocolate crumble dessert.
- Barracrudo: As the name suggests, this is a crudo spot: raw seafood, tartares, oysters, and crudité, right on the water. It’s the kind of menu built for grazing and sharing over a long dinner rather than one main dish, and the seafront setting makes it worth lingering.
- Locanda degli Artisti: Family-run for over a decade, right on the port of San Felice Circeo with a panoramic veranda overlooking the water.
The After dinner Ritual: La Casa del Dolce
No trip to this area is complete without this. Getting a sweet treat after dinner is a genuine ritual here, not an afterthought, Italians walk over after eating specifically for this. Get the bomba alla crema, the crema al limone, or the Nutella one. Honestly, they’re all fantastic. Just eat it immediately, it does not wait.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Sabaudia?
Sabaudia is on the Tyrrhenian coast of Lazio, about 100 kilometers south of Rome, at the foot of Monte Circeo, inside the Circeo National Park.
Is Sabaudia worth visiting?
Yes, and not just because of the beaches. It’s one of the few places on this coast that’s stayed genuinely lived-in by the same families for generations rather than turning over for tourism.
How far is Sabaudia from Rome?
Under 1.5 hours by car with no traffic. There’s a train and bus option but it’s slow and not worth the hassle, especially since you’ll want a car once you’re here anyway.
What’s the nearest airport to Sabaudia?
Rome Fiumicino (FCO) or Ciampino (CIA), both roughly 1.5 to 2 hours away by car.
Where should you stay in Sabaudia or San Felice Circeo?
Le Dune or Oasi di Kufra in Sabaudia if you want a hotel with its own private beach, or Hotel Punta Rossa in San Felice Circeo for a quieter, more upscale base on the promontory.
Can you visit Sabaudia and San Felice Circeo in one trip?
Yes, they’re a short drive apart. A full weekend gives you room to also fit in a morning hike in Monte Circeo National Park and time on the water at Lago di Paola.
What can you do besides the beach in Sabaudia?
Hike Monte Circeo, rent a canoe or kayak at the Darsena near Torre Paola, cycle the flat roads along the dunes, or visit Torre Paola itself, a 16th-century coastal watchtower with real history behind it.
Do you need a car in this area?
Yes. Public transport exists but isn’t practical, and you’ll need a car regardless to move between Sabaudia, Circeo, and San Felice Circeo.
Where should you eat in Sabaudia and Circeo?
Borgo dei Pescatori for a lakeside dinner, La Caravella for sunset and seafood, Saporetti for beachfront pasta, and in Circeo, Hotel Punta Rossa for something special or Sapor Proprio for a more casual, seasonal menu. Save room for a bomba from La Casa del Dolce after dinner, it’s not optional.
