Rome: DAY 88

EIGHTY-EIGHTH DAY

December 10, 2005

The closer we get to Rome, the more difficult everything becomes.  After a wild night of wind and rain (with giant tree planters overturned on the hotel’s terrace) the day breaks with a high and clear sky that would be hard to find in Montana.  We are going to Ostia Antica, the old Roman port west of Rome.  This should be a cinch, but that always means trouble.  We wind down from our high perch at Castel Gondolfo toward the GRA, which is the ring road around Rome.  We have been on this thing many times and have yet to get it right.  We get on at the second Rome airport; Ciampino and we are going the wrong way. Why, why, who the hell knows why?  We know we want to go West and then up to Fumicino and Antica, but we get it wrong.  We are traveling at 120 Kms per hour the wrong way.  Then we do the same thing again.  Still going the wrong way.  It must be the signs or the gods or the karma.  By the third time we get it right and head for Ostia, the modern beach of Rome and first a Roman port in about 300 BC. 

Ostia Antica is about one mile from the beach town of Ostia.  It is a large ruin that was essential to the Roman Empire.  From this port goods trafficked in from all parts of the western world and out to the empire especially up the Tiber to Rome.  It is an outstanding site, much bigger than Pompeii and restored to a condition that lets you see what it once was.  It sprawls over 3 or 4 square miles with shops, stores, temples, baths, athletic facilities, hotels and restaurants.  It was a real city. The Visigoths who sacked Rome in 403 AD also sacked Ostia which had  existed for about 800 years.  A mighty statement for Roman civilization with aqueducts and flowing water, sewage drained to the Tiber an incredible urban life 2200 years ago.    We had a terrific guide who made it all comprehensible.  She told us more in an hour than we could have learned any other way - twenty Euros, what a bargain.  I think we underpay our teachers, besides she told me how to treat my cough and wrote the medicine down for us to get back in the city.

We push on to the new town of Ostia for an attempt at lunch.  Even on this cold and wintry day, because the sun is shinning there are lots of people on the beach.  It sort of reminds us of Venice Beach and the parking is just as tough.  We find our spot about a half a mile from lunch.  It is a Spanish Restaurant serving Tapas and Bocadillos and it is perfect for us.  It is hard to eat casually in Italy and it has become my quest to find an easy simple meal.  I cannot take too much first and second and third plate stuff. 

With the usual twists and turns, we take the car back to Avis, get the bike at the Academy and trundle down the hill to our place which looks nice and raises my spirits because we are home.  We head out for our different missions, Kim to the Internet Point for the E-mail and me to the gym and  store for our dinner.  I have gone from sort of down to being glad to be back.  Very surprising.