Taranto 2026 turned Aroya and Romantika into a floating village for thousands of athletes
Two large passenger ships moored at the Mar Grande naval base in Taranto have become one of the most striking features of the XX Mediterranean Games. Instead of a traditional sports village built on land, the organizers hired the cruise ship Aroya and the cruise ferry Romantika to accommodate most of the athletes, coaches and delegation members. During the Games, which opened on 21 August and run until 3 September 2026, the ships were transformed into a temporary international complex with cabins, restaurants, training areas, medical services and relaxation zones. According to the Taranto 2026 Organizing Committee, the project was carried out in cooperation with the Italian Navy, and both vessels are stationed inside its base in the city on the Ionian Sea coast. In this way, the sea, normally one of the key elements of Taranto's identity, also became the physical center of the Games participants' everyday lives.
Aroya is the main hub of the Mediterranean Village
The main role in the floating village belongs to Aroya, a ship operated by Saudi operator AROYA Cruises that arrived in Taranto on 16 August. Official company data state that the ship is 335 meters long, has 1,678 cabins and a tonnage of 151,000 tons, and is spread across 19 decks. In regular tourist operation, it can accommodate more than 3,300 passengers in lower berths, while for the purposes of the Games its capacity has been organized according to a special delegation accommodation model. Following a media tour of the village, ANSA reported that around 79 percent of the members of each national delegation were assigned to Aroya, while the remaining 21 percent were accommodated on Romantika. The Organizing Committee emphasized that the distribution was not made according to the importance or status of individual countries, but proportionally, while the decision on which specific members stay on one ship or the other is made by the national Olympic committees.
Aroya was originally designed as a large cruise resort, allowing the organizers to combine in one place functions that would be distributed across several buildings in a traditional sports village. According to AROYA Cruises, the ship has 12 restaurants, 17 lounges and cafés, and 20 entertainment venues. There are also swimming pools, gyms, a running area, wellness facilities and numerous communal spaces. The Organizing Committee particularly highlights the restaurants, gyms, relaxation and wellness zones, medical services dedicated to participants, and entertainment areas. For athletes who need nutrition, recovery, medical support and peace between training sessions and competitions, this concentration of services reduces the need for additional movement around the city.
Romantika takes over part of the delegations during periods of peak occupancy
The second part of the village consists of Romantika, a passenger ship owned by the Estonian company Tallink, which arrived in Taranto on 17 August, one day after Aroya. ANSA states that Romantika was built in 2002, is approximately 193.9 meters long and 29 meters wide. In its regular configuration, the ship can carry up to 2,500 passengers, while Tallink sources for this class of vessel list hundreds of cabins and facilities intended for multi-day journeys. For the Mediterranean Games, its role is auxiliary but important: it accommodates some of the athletes and staff when the number of people in the village reaches its peak. This allows the organizers to keep most communal life on Aroya, while Romantika provides additional flexibility without the need to distribute participants among a large number of hotels across the wider area.
At the beginning of August, the Organizing Committee announced that the arrival of Romantika would complete the sea-based accommodation system. The ship sailed to Taranto with technical and service staff, and both vessels are moored in Mar Grande, within the area where the Mediterranean Village has been established. Before the start of the competition, the International Committee of Mediterranean Games announced that the official opening of the village was scheduled for 18 August at 6 a.m., while its closure is planned for 5 September at 8 p.m., two days after the end of the sports program. This timeframe allows delegations to arrive before the opening of the Games and to depart gradually after the final competitions. In practice, this means that for more than two weeks the ships function as a temporary neighborhood with its own rhythm, access rules and services.
Almost four thousand athletes and 26 Olympic committees
The scale of the logistical task is evident from the number of registered participants. At the beginning of August, CONI announced that 3,854 athletes from 26 national Olympic committees were expected in Puglia, along with four representatives of Athletica Vaticana, which is participating for the second consecutive time. The Italian delegation was announced as the largest, with almost 500 athletes, while the teams from Türkiye, France, Greece, Algeria and Spain are also among the largest. The final number of athletes present may differ from earlier registration lists due to changes in delegation line-ups immediately before the start of the competitions, but this is an event that brings several thousand competitors and a large number of coaches, doctors, officials and accompanying staff to Taranto and other host cities. This is precisely why accommodation was one of the key operational issues in the preparation of the Games.
Taranto is hosting the XX edition of the Mediterranean Games and is the fourth Italian city to take on this role after Naples in 1963, Bari in 1997 and Pescara in 2009. The sports program runs from 21 August to 3 September at venues in Taranto and other locations in Puglia. Because of the geographical spread of the competitions, transport organization remains an important part of daily logistics, but accommodating a large number of participants at a single naval base simplifies a range of other operations, from security and catering to medical care and delegation coordination. Before the start of the competitions, the International Committee of Mediterranean Games specifically reviewed accommodation, medical services, the volunteer program, transport and the readiness of operational teams. The Committee also stated at the time that around 3,000 volunteers had been accredited, further demonstrating the scale of the organizational system behind the two-week event.
A sports village that functions like a small city
The concept of a sports village at a major competition is not merely a matter of providing beds. Such a space must allow delegations to eat, train, recover, undergo medical examinations, hold meetings and spend time away from competition venues every day, under a security regime appropriate for an international event. In Taranto, a large part of these functions has been moved onto the ship. In its basic configuration, Aroya already has infrastructure comparable to a large hotel complex, so its existing tourist facilities have been repurposed for the sporting community. Instead of guests on a cruise, during the Games the corridors are filled with national teams in their national uniforms, coaches and officials, while restaurants and communal zones become meeting places for people who otherwise see each other only at competition venues.
During the media day on Aroya, ANSA recorded precisely this social dimension of the project: athletes from different countries meet in elevators, restaurants, gyms and communal spaces, while everyday life on board creates opportunities for informal contact outside the competitive environment. This element carries special symbolism for the Mediterranean Games, a competition conceived as a place for sporting connections among countries in Europe, Africa and Asia that share the Mediterranean region. For this reason, the organizers presented Aroya and Romantika not only as a logistical solution but also as a shared home for the delegations. At the same time, the ships remain first and foremost functional infrastructure for a major event: their value to the organization is measured by whether they can provide stable accommodation and services to thousands of people every day, rather than by the luxury normally associated with cruises.
Mar Grande transformed into the center of the delegations' everyday lives
The location of the village further emphasizes Taranto's maritime character. Mar Grande is a large bay beside the city, and the Italian Navy's naval base provided the organizers with a controlled area for mooring the two large ships and for the daily functioning of the international delegations. Massimo Ferrarese, President of the Organizing Committee, said upon Aroya's arrival that the project resulted from close cooperation between the Committee and the Navy and that the ship should serve as a kind of home at sea for the athletes. In the same context, the Committee emphasized that the accommodation is located in the heart of the naval base, providing a distinctive operational framework for access, security and organization. Although details of the security procedures have not been publicly elaborated, the location itself clearly distinguishes this village from conventional hotel or residential complexes.
The choice of ships also corresponds to the urban geography of a city whose development, port and military presence have been connected with the sea for decades. Instead of placing a large temporary community on the outskirts or distributing it among hotels, the organizers concentrated it on the water, alongside the city's waterfront. This made Aroya and Romantika visible symbols of the Games even before the first sporting finals. Photographs of the two ships in Mar Grande give the event a visual identity that is difficult to confuse with any other multisport competition. For Taranto 2026, this connection between the city, the port, the naval base and international sport has become part of the story of hosting the event.
Alessia Maurelli as the symbolic mayor of the village
The community on the ships also received a symbolic representative. The Organizing Committee appointed Alessia Maurelli, former captain of the Italian rhythmic gymnastics team and an Olympic medalist, as mayor of the Mediterranean Village. Her role is not administrative in the traditional sense, but represents a link between the organizers and the athletes and emphasizes the values of inclusion, encounters and shared life among delegations. During the welcoming ceremony for the Italian team on 20 August, Maurelli invited the athletes, alongside their pursuit of results, to pay attention to the people they would meet and to the experience of staying in Taranto. On that occasion, CONI announced that accredited journalists had for the first time been given broader access to the interior of Aroya as a sports village.
Such a role is familiar from major multisport events, where the village often has its own protocol, welcoming ceremonies and spaces for delegations to meet. In Taranto, this model has simply been moved to the sea. Flags, national team uniforms and official ceremonies now appear alongside ship decks and naval-base infrastructure, while what would be a square or communal atrium in a traditional Olympic village has been replaced by restaurants, lounges and decks. For athletes, this changes the setting but not the village's fundamental purpose: to create a place where competitors from different countries live in close proximity throughout the event.
A temporary solution with major logistical advantages
The organizers explained their choice of ships by the need to accommodate a large number of participants as close as possible to the center of operations and sports venues while avoiding dispersal across a large number of accommodation facilities. Ahead of the Games, RaiNews reported the Organizing Committee's explanation that event rules require athletes to be as close as possible to competition areas and that building an entirely new village on land would have been significantly more expensive. Such a model nevertheless requires very precise coordination: the ships must simultaneously function as accommodation facilities, places for meals and rest, and departure points for daily trips to training sessions and competitions. In addition, national teams do not follow identical schedules, so the number of people on board changes from day to day depending on the sports calendars and the arrivals and departures of individual teams.
Another advantage of the floating village is its temporary nature. After the Games end, the ships can leave Taranto, without the city having to find new uses for hundreds or thousands of newly built accommodation units after the major event. This in itself does not mean that the model is always cheaper or more suitable than building on land, because the costs of chartering, logistics, security, supplies and transport depend on the circumstances of each event. In Taranto's case, the organizers assessed that this approach best suited the available infrastructure and preparation timeframe. The result is a sports village that will exist for only a few weeks but will probably remain one of the most recognizable images of the 2026 Mediterranean Games.
The floating village has become part of Taranto 2026's identity
In the first days of the Games, Aroya and Romantika are already functioning as much more than places to sleep. A large part of the delegations' everyday lives takes place on board: meals, recovery, socializing, preparation for competitions and returning after performances. Given that participants are accommodated in a shared, controlled space, the organizers can centralize numerous services, while athletes remain part of a large international community even when they are not at the competition venues. In this respect, the floating village comes close to the basic idea of every major multisport settlement, but with an atmosphere specific to a port city and the Mediterranean.
Until the village closes on 5 September, the ships will remain a temporary home for thousands of people connected with the competition. After that, Aroya and Romantika will return to their maritime roles, and Mar Grande to its usual rhythm. During the Games, however, the boundary between the city, the port and the sports complex has almost disappeared: the naval base has become the address of the sports village, the cruise ship and ferry have been transformed into residential blocks, and the decks and communal areas into a meeting place for 26 national delegations. This is precisely why the two-ship solution is not merely a technical detail of the organization, but one of the elements that will distinguish Taranto 2026 from most major sporting events held on land.
Sources:
- Taranto 2026 Organizing Committee - official information on the arrival of Aroya, accommodation at the naval base and the facilities of the Mediterranean Village (link)
- CONI / Taranto 2026 - data on the expected number of athletes, 26 Olympic committees and the welcoming ceremony in the village (link)
- ANSA - report from the media tour of Aroya, distribution of delegations between Aroya and Romantika, and technical data on the ships (link)
- AROYA Cruises - official specifications of the Aroya ship and an overview of its onboard facilities (link)
- International Committee of Mediterranean Games - opening and closing times of the village and information on organizational readiness, medical services and volunteers (link)
- RaiNews TGR Puglia - context behind the choice of ships as an accommodation solution and information about the arrival of athletes in the village (link)