Thursday, July 7, 2011

Day 33: Ostia Antica (date: 7/6/2011)

Today, I ventured a bit outside of Rome to the ancient ruined city of Ostia Antica. It was awesome!! It literally is the remains of an entire city. I wandered around it for hours and took close to a bajillion pictures.

My day started with me getting up and reading for a bit. I was getting hungry so I grabbed some lunch and then headed to the metro station. From the metro I hopped the train to Ostia Antica. After a five minute walk from the station, I was in the ancient city. 

I was amazed at how far the ruins go on. It makes sense, as this was once a bustling port city back in the first century, but still. You could probably spend a whole week there and still not see everything. I was only there for a few hours but I think I saw the highlights.

On some of the signs there were drawings of what the ruins most likely looked like in their prime. The second picture is what’s left of the portico structure that they think was a giant covered walkway.  


There were also a lot of really cool mosaics in some of the buildings. This one was a bath house and if you look closely up towards the left corner you can see the dolphins from the drawing. 


I walked into a complex that was basically a fire station. Apparently, fires were a big problem and it was essential to have people around to put them out. 


The coolest part of the city was definitely the theatre, which they were actually preparing for some sort of show. 


I continued exploring the rest of the town for about two hours. There was a big forum area and some “palaces” along with a lot of monuments. The whole thing was amazing. I would have stayed longer but it was oppressively hot outside and after two hours I was dying. I headed back to the train station and back to Rome. Tommy was back from class by the time I got back so we hung out for a bit and then went over to another group’s house.

Most of them were working on homework, but my friend Dan didn’t feel like spending his last few nights doing work so we went out to explore Trastevere. I got a slice of pizza for dinner and we sat in a piazza talking. One of the craziest things about Italy is that people go out every night and just chill in piazzas. There is always something going on. Just walking around there are tons of people milling about and hanging out at fountains.

While we were there a street performer started setting up some stuff. It took him forever but once he started his show it was pretty cool. He did some bike tricks, juggled some fire, and did various other little gimmicky things. It was quite entertaining.

Eventually we moved to a different piazza that had even more people in it. We stayed there talking about random things for a while and then headed back. It was a fun night. I kind of wish there more nights like that back home to break up the monotony of just hanging out at the apartment. Tomorrow I move to a hostel because the group is off to Shanghai at 5AM. I’ve got a few more days in Rome and then Trent will be here. We’re going to Naples and then Pompeii and then I’ll be heading back to America. I’ve been having a fantastic time, but I’m definitely ready to get back home. It will be great seeing my friends again and sleeping in my comfy bed!

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