Ostia Antica

I have been wanting to go see Pompeii since we arrived in Cyprus (and before that too, but since we’re so close now I’ve felt it with new urgency). I originally wanted to go last August, but it was immediately obvious that there was no way we’d find decent lodging in the Amalfi Coast area in August a mere two months ahead of time. Oops.

I briefly entertained the idea of doing Pompeii in a day from Rome, but it would have involved multiple trains, a bus, and a very long day. We were only in Rome for three days, and it just didn’t make sense to kill ourselves getting out to Pompeii for one of them. However, in my research I came across purported “Pompeii-like” ruins within 45 minutes of Rome, and so to Ostia Antica we went.

Ostia Antica means “Ancient Port” and is easily accessible from downtown Rome via public transportation. We took the subway, changed lines once, then got off and spent 25-30 minutes on a commuter light rail train, and walked the short distance to Ostia. Because of silting, Ostia is now a full three kilometers away from the sea, but it is still near the banks of the Tiber River.

Ostia is a remarkable intact Roman city. The most incredible thing about it is its sheer size; if you were an archeology buff you could easily spend the entire day there wandering around looking for hidden gems. I had downloaded a PDF self-guided tour, but forgot to print it out. I had brought it along on my iPad, but it was intermittently raining and really bright, plus carrying a camera and other stuff made it difficult to keep referring back to a screen. And we kind of got lost and it was hard to orient ourselves when you’re on a Roman sidewalk surrounded on all sides by mostly intact brick buildings.

My camera died right after seeing the painted houses, so I didn’t really get enough photos of Ostia to do it justice.

One of the highlights (immediately preceding the camera’s death) was the House of Cupido & Psyche. Here is a fabulously intact internal water feature:

And spectacular natural polychromatic flooring– I think the dark green is granite, but I’m not sure:

I had zoomed in just to get a close-up shot of this statue, but this zoomed out shot gives you a better sense of what is happening in this particular room– about 2/3 of the way into the room, there’s a marble column with the statue of Cupido and Psyche kissing. There’s lovely tile floored all around, with marble paneled walls and brick behind it. It was really impressive. And the best part was that Severin and I had the house completely to ourselves, there was no one else in there poking around when we were. (Disclaimer:  This is a plaster cast of the original, because obviously they aren’t going to leave the real deal exposed to the elements like this. The original is in the small museum on-site, which Severin and I did not go into.)

Severin has many more photos of Ostia but hasn’t uploaded them yet. He let me use his camera once mine died (because he’s the best husband ever ;-)), so hopefully between the two of us we did the place justice…We’ll upload them soon and make another post with more photos.