Ostia Antica

Tuesday October 14, 2008  

For the last full day in Rome, we left the city for the excavated port city of Ostia Antica, a 30-minute train ride toward the coast. As you can probably tell by now, we are fascinated by Roman ruins, possibly due to those years of Latin we were subjected to.

This location is probably second only to Pompeii (and far less-visited) for size and preservation of an ancient Roman city. It was covered over by silt from the Tiber River, so there are whole blocks of buildings, which were abandoned in about 500AD. What remains has been looted by the locals, (“What the barbarians did not take, the Barberini (local family) did.” is a common saying in Rome.) but there is more than enough to understand how people, both rich and poor, lived. The remains of shops, temples, apartment buildings, a mill and bakery, theater, baths, warehouses and, of course, the main square, or forum. To give you an idea of the size of the town, the main street you traverse is about 1 km long and has dwellings and other structures on both sides, extending out 300 yards or so. We spent about 4 hours there and saw about half the area.

Since it was our last day, we had to see one more church, this one the Basilica of St. Paul. We’d missed it on previous trips, as it’s a bit “outside the walls” and off the beaten track. According to last night’s TV, the pope was there yesterday to attend part of the festival of sacred music we’d enjoyed Saturday night at St. Ignatius, so we thought it was time we stopped by, as well, especially as this is the worldwide Catholic church’s Pauline year. This church seemed to be bigger than St. Peter’s! We walked in, unknowingly, via a side entrance and were surprised by the size but then we realized we were in the transept. The nave was immense, looking more so because there was little in its five aisles! The church is built over the Tomb of St Paul and also displays the chains that were used to imprison him before he was executed in Rome.

After dinner in our place we went back into the centro storico to see the Forum once more, as we had lovely memories of it at night, dramatically lit and a beautiful sight. Well, maybe they ran out of light bulbs... No illumination, so Tom had to take some pictures by street- and moonlight.

Tomorrow, we’re on to Naples by train.

Ciao!
Mel and Tom