Ostia Antica, Italy (October 1, 2025)
Never heard of Ostia Antica? Me neither. Nor Violet. Nor Elena (the history buff) until she began doing her research on Italy. No one said, “Oooh, you MUST go here. It’s amazing.” Or anything like that. It was one of those hidden gems that’s there if you look for it, but most people are likely to miss it because it’s not nearly as popular as the main attractions you’re likely to have at the top of your hit list.
Ostia Antica has it’s own metro stop, but otherwise is tucked away
All of us were surprised at how wonderful this day trip was and we were all happy to have gotten up early (like 6am to be on a subway at 7:30am and arriving at Ostia Antica at 8:30am early) to have the place to ourselves — at least for the first hour or so.
Opening selfie before we being our half-day adventure together
So a bit of context as to how we ended up here. As shared in previous posts, Elena is the history buff in our family. She loves the ancient stuff and especially loves ancient ruins. When she was researching what to do in Pompeii, there was a reference to Ostia Antica. Unlike Pompeii where there was little warning before a volcano erupted and lava covered the town, Ostia Antica was abandoned when the Tiber river naturally changed direction and (over time) redirected itself away from this town, essentially rendering it nugatory. (You like that word, don’t you? It means “of no value or importance” and totally works ;-)
So, unlike Pompeii where everyone died exactly where they were when the volcano erupted, what you see in Ostia Antica are all the buildings that were abandoned without all the death and destruction. Think “more playground, less bummer.” A great way to spend a day.
Elena posing in front of ancient Roman mosaic work preserved by mud
Like yesterday’s post, I’m going to share that I went a bit overboard on the picture taking. That’s because this place is on several hectares of land. Okay, I’m exaggerating, but not by much. This place is huge and despite how much we walked through, much of it is still being dug up by archeologists. We watched three separate dig sights and they seem to be happening all the time.
And I was also having a ton of fun spending the day with my family
What surprised me most was how much fun Violet had. it’s not that I expected her to have a bummer of a day, but rather I did NOT expect her to have the kind of EPIC day that she ended up having. Some of it had nothing to do with the space and some of it did. For example:
Violet found many, many cats roaming free in this space
In addition to the kitties, Violet found a number of the green Rose-ringed Parakeets or Monk Parakeets flying around. We followed a few of them and discovered a HUGE pomegranate tree. Now these birds had cracked into many of these pomegranates and left them on the tree half-eaten. Soooo, Violet and I took the liberty of finishing the other halves (much to the chagrin of the birds who let us know their unhappiness with their loud chirps at us).
And then, Violet went around and explored this space much like she does in her video games. As she conveyed to me, it was like a living Legend of Zelda game where you don’t know the map and you walk around to discover what’s there. She loved showing me around too.
And of course, this is just a small sampling of what’s here. When you stand in the middle of this place and look as far as the eye can see in every direction at the buildings thousands of people lived in to the North, South, East and West of where you are standing, it’s truly a sight to behold. You walk in every direction and there doesn’t seem to be an end to the size or number of buildings that exist.
There’s a full theater that continues to be used to this day. It holds about 4,000 people and served as a center for entertainment. That gives you a rough idea of the size of this place.
When Ostia Antica was first established, it was a military strong hold to protect Rome at the Tibers river. Eventually that morphed into a commerce stronghold where salt was collected and distributed. And then that evolved into a massive trading post where everything was traded from grain to ships to exotic animals for the Roman Colosseum (see related blog post).
Okay, that’s more than you needed to see and less than we saw. Seriously, the more you wander around this place, the more you see and the more you are pulled into exploring. And for me, the more I explore, the more I want to capture and share. I’m sure I’ll chill out … eventually. But for now, I can’t help myself. I’m seeing this vast space that’s so interesting and different. I want to do my best to capture and share it (even if it feels a bit like a fools errand).
And so that’s it. That was our day. It’s now officially October and with that I’ve begun my second quarter of this trip; the next 90 days into my journey. I’m really glad to be doing this part with Elena and Violet. It’s so much more fun to be with my family and missing the rest of them.
I had a nice long conversation with Will today and that was wonderful. So good to reconnect with him and I also recently connected with my mother-in-law, Connie Knies, who I sent a package to from Rome. As I continue to slim down, I’m getting rid of everything I don’t need on this trip so that I can remain in a 44 liter back pack and that means there are a few things I’ve shipped home so that I can use them when I get back (like extra contact lens that I don’t think I’ll need, and extra rain jacket and too many T-shirts).
I’ve given some of that away to thrift stores along the way, but some of this stuff I’m not yet ready to part with permanently. I’ll need to have a think about my attachments there. I’m sure there are a few good lessons I can learn from this when I stop to consider them.
