1/24 Ostia Antica

Saturday was a very interesting day.....

We decided to take a trip to Ostia Antica which is a town on the Mediterranean that has a bunch of ancient ruins.  There is a tram that runs from Rome to the coast and it is supposed to be easy to get to.  Well it's easy once you find the right station, but we had to take 3 different trains in order to get on the one that will take you to Ostia.  The train ride was only 15 min from the correct station to Ostia so it is a quick trip.  However, it took us an hour to find the right station.  I have been working really hard on being ok with getting lost.  I don't like being lost because I feel like I am wasting time, but here it's good to be lost because then I learn about the city.  Each time I take the train, bus, or metro, I am learning more and more about how to get around.  You can walk anywhere here if you have enough time, but once I figure out all the bus and train stops, it will be great.  I just keep thinking to myself that next time I'll know how to do this the first time, and know how to do it faster.  

Once we got to Ostia, we visited a Castle called "Castello dei Ostia" Very original I know.... We didn't go inside but we wandered around outside of it.  It is a very small castle and in my opinion shouldn't even be called a castle.  Pope Gregorio started building the castle for a weekend place, and never got around to making it very big.  The town of Ostia is very small and run down.  There is a section of it that is medieval with a beautiful old church and small shops.  The town is famous for the ancient ruins that are from the 2nd century BC.  Ostia used to be the harbor port for Rome.  It is at the mouth of the Tiber river which runs through Rome and out to the Mediterranean.  The water has changed in that time and now the town is about 3 kilometers from the ocean.   When Rome was expanding its territory, Ostia was used as a naval base.  Since it is the rainy season here.....it of course was down pouring for our visit.  We were going to maybe head back because the wind was making the rain come at you in all directions and we had no escape from getting wet, but we had already made the trip so we toughed it out.  As you walk through ancient ruins, you really have to have an imagination.  To me, everything looks the same because there are no roofs and most of the walls are knocked down.  Ancient Ostia was considered a city back in its day.  It was very interesting to see how structured and in line all the houses were.  I am very amazed at how much intricate work goes into the ancient towns.  The floors in the buildings are all mosaics, and most of the buildings have some sort of design on them in brick.  We walked around for about 3 hours in the rain and then it finally let up as we were getting ready to leave!  It is hard to explain how large of an area this was.  We tried to explore as much of it as we could, but after a while, it all starts to look the same.  What is cool about this park, is that they let you climb on the ruins.  Most places don't let you do that because of how old things are, but it gave us a better sense of how they lived their lives.  The coolest part about Ancient Ostia, was the stadium or amphitheater  type place they had.  I am assuming that it was just used for meetings in the town because the "floor" was very small.  We climbed to the top and took a bunch of pictures so they should be on the slide show soon.  We made it to the end of the park when it started to get sunny.  After about 5 minutes of sunshine the rain came again but only in one part of the sky.  The rain was pelting us from the side and we all destroyed our umbrellas, but we were able to witness a double rainbow over the park!  It was so pretty and a great end to our trip.  We made it back much easier than we came and I am looking forward to going back to the little town when it gets warmer to go to the beach!