Days 11-12: Italy: Old Harbors and Beautiful Churches

Our cozy and classy method of transport.

We began our day by traveling to Ostia Antica, the ruins of a Roman port on the Tiber River. This port is located about 30 km from Rome itself, and is no longer on the coast of the Mediterranean, due to 2000 years of sediment buildup. It was used to transport wheat, olive oil, wine, and the fish sauce called Garum that, according to Charel, the Romans absolutely adored. We reached it via a small metro line.

A tour guide explaining a map of the ruins.

Our second free Roma Pass entrance was used here which more than made up for the cost of it. Ostia Antica is the third largest Roman excavation site, after Pompei and Herculaneum, and for good reason. We walked through it for over two hours and probably only saw half of it. What we did see is rather impressive, however.

We started off by walking through the old necropolis. What remained of the rooms had small alcoves in the walls for urns. Some of the doorways were very short, which helps demonstrate the height difference between then and now. It is possible that even the Romans had to duck to get into these doors. I included a picture with me for scale (I'm 5'10/1.78m).

We then entered the remains of the port itself. Let me take a minute here to talk about Roman roads. We had encountered them a few times, visiting the places that we did. When they were made, they were level and relatively smooth, and revolutionized transport and movement. Now, most of the filler between stones is gone and time has shifted these stones, so walking on them is a test of attention and patience. After a couple of days of them, my ankles and knees were pretty strained. Still better than muddy dirt roads, however. We could even see some remains of the chariot paths carved into them.





We passed an overlook to the ruins of the baths. From here you could see a good portion of the ruins, plus some of the many mosaics. All of them were in black/gray tile. There has been a lot of deterioration of them due to foot traffic, pollution, and exposure to the elements. As with many things old and Roman, they are under constant restoration. A lot of them were covered up to help preserve them.

We also went to the the old theater, which was already occupied by quite a few German tourists. They were taking turns going down to the stage and speaking, and a couple of them even did some call-and-response type singing. It seems that this theater is designed so that, even if someone on stage is speaking quietly, everyone can hear them, even in the last row.







There were some ruins of some insulae, old houses for the common people living in the area. They were generally up to 5 stories high and caught on fire easily. There were shops on the bottom with the living quarters on the floors above, much like modern city centers today.

The day started to heat up and we decided it was probably good to finish up what we were doing. We took another path to head up to the cafeteria and gift shop area to have some ice cream. Of course, it was also delicious. On our way out, we also passed a lot more mosaics spread around, depicting things like ships and mythical figures.

We returned to the hotel to check on Mom and get some lunch. We went again to the place across the street. Dick got the same lasagna as the day before (it was that good) but I tried something new. I don't really remember the name of it but it was very good. I could have eaten twice the amount that they gave me (this will be a theme of the day).

After lunch, we went to 2 of the 4 big basilicas: S. Maria Maggiore and S. Paoulo fuori le mura.We started off with S. Maria Maggiore, the largest church in the world dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Of all the churches we went to, this one was absolutely my favorite. It's also one of the older churches we visited, being constructed in the 5th century.

The level of detail there was astounding. From the ceiling to the mosaics/paintings on the walls to the altar to the marble statues, it's clear that there was a ton of work put into it. This can be said of any of the great churches in Rome, but something about this one stuck out in my mind. Maybe it was the sheer amount of gilded items and the particular style they were done in, I'm not sure, but I found myself just staring.

We found a statue of Pope Pius IX with an incredible level of detail. They even put texture into the "fabric" of his clothes and pillow. If painted correctly, this statue would be very hard to distinguish from the real thing (except for the size of it.)

We next went to S. Paulo fuori le mura, the other of the two basilicas we visited. This one was enormous, open, spacious, and also lavishly decorated. It was the largest church in the world until S. Peter's was built. This particular church has a portrait mosaic of every single pope along with the time they served. The portraits stretched around all the walls until the current one. There's a story that if all of the portrait spots get filled, then the world were end. There are only about 6 left. Make of that what you will.

In the front of the church, there was a large mosaic that dominated a half-dome shape. There was a coin machine to turn on the lights for about 2 minutes, during which the photographers scrambled to get pictures of it. The grave of St. Paul is also said to be here.






Charel wanted to go to some other things, but Dick and I were both too tired and footsore to do much else. We returned to the hotel to rest for a bit.

We took Mom to the Colosseum, as it is just off of a metro station and it's something that everyone coming to Rome should try to see. The metro was very crowded, which didn't help, but we managed to get her there without too much problem. The peddlers were out in force, and it was getting to the point that they were asking us 2-3 times in a row if we wanted something. I certainly won't miss that part of the Rome experience.

After that we went to a restaurant right next to the metro station near our hotel. I got some kind of ravioli but there wasn't nearly enough. I could have eaten twice the amount they gave me (see? a theme). We then ate ice cream at the place across the street (that we ate earlier) and then called it a night.


Day 5: Traveling home

Not much weird to say about our trip home, nothing super eventful happened. I just want to leave this picture of the Alps that Mom and Dick took, however.











Photos: 

Ostia Antica

S. Maria Maggiore

S. Paulo fuori le mura