Day 6 - Mar 10, 2013 Last updated: 3/31/13 8:00pm PT
Today we visited Ostia Antica, the Appian Way and ancient aqueducts.
Ostia Antica is a suburban distance from Rome, and possibly the first colony of ancient Rome. At one time this was a port town, but the coastline has moved about 3km out. The site is very much like Pompeii, but was not buried by volcanic ash. Instead, it was buried by mud/silt from a shifting river. The town was abandoned and was buried slowly over time.
The mosaics on the sidewalk in front of storefronts, probably indicated what the merchant was selling.
The public toilets. Don’t be shy. The openings on the front, below where you sit, are for your sponge on a stick, to clean yourself off after, you know…
The Appian Way is one of the main old Roman roads. The building of this road was begun in the 4th century BC. On Sundays, the road is closed to traffic and people can walk or bike it. Not sure I’d want to ride a bike (or in a car) on this road. It is not very smooth.
We took a bus to get here and walked. There isn’t too much to see, some old catacombs, a ruined villa, and the road itself. We saw a map along the road, telling where things were, like the bus stops. The map said we were a lot closer to a bus stop than we actually were (or more likely we misread the map). We started walking, but saw no signs of a major road up ahead that would have had a bus. My cell phone reception was poor out here, so the Internet would come and go. We decided best to turn around, because we knew where the bus stop was behind us, and the one ahead of us seemed way too far. It turned out to be a smart move because once we looked at a real map, we discovered we would have been walking a long time. I wanted to see the Appian Way, just not that much of it.
The sheep came out of nowhere. We were just starting our walk back to the bus stop and we heard a cow bell (in this case, a sheep bell), then all of these sheep start jumping over the short wall on the side of the road. We had to give them a wide berth. There was a bit of fragrance surrounding the sheep.
We took a bus from the Appian Way to the Metro and went to see some old aqueducts. There is a park around these ancient ruins. While not as impressive as Pont du Gard in France, these were still nice to see.
