Ostia Antica And Farewell

10^thand 11^th May 2014

Jenny and Lori at Ostea Antica. — Jenny and Lori at Ostia Antica.

We were told by the lady in the reception office at the Happy campground that a good place to visit would be Ostia Antica, “a bit like Pompeii but without the volcano”. When we looked on the map we saw that it was only about 10 kms from the Airport where we were going to drop Lori off on Sunday. On Saturday morning we said our farewells at the Happy Camping and headed west along the ring route of Rome to the town of Ostia. A detour to the Lidl supermarket to restock and then on to the carpark of Ostia Antica where we were surprized at how small it was for such a large site and that it was free to park. We parked under some shady trees had some lunch and prepared ourselves for an afternoon of walking amongst the old ruins.

These figures were outside of the amphitheater.

View from the top of the amphitheater to the plaza area.

Ostia Antica was the port town which serviced Rome and the ruins covered a large area. It took us over 4 hours to have a look around including a small museum housing statues and elaborate sarcophagi. We were amazed at the quality of the ruins and the fact that we were able to freely wander through the buildings and on rooftop viewing platforms. The place was very quiet not like the hectic sites of Pompeii and Ephesus where tourists are thick and annoying.

This was inside of a wealthy persons house, it has a fountain room and its own toilet.

Communal toilet block. No doors between but it did have a separate men and ladies room.

In the museum they had some interesting sarcophagi in excellent condition.

Inside one of the taverns , the menu was still on the wall.

View from one of roof top terrace's. — View from one of roof top terrace’s.

We spent the night next to a large paddock and in the morning drove to a carpark next to the train station Parco Leonardo which was only one stop away from the airport. Lori was due to leave at about 3.30 so we had plenty of time before we had to catch the train and went to a large shopping mall on the other side of the railway station. Shopping malls are basically the same the world over and after doing a bit of shopping and window shopping we had coffee and returned to the motorhome. We caught the train to the Airport and Lori checked in her bag and we wandered the airport until it was time to say our goodbyes and Lori went through the security check and off to the departure gates. Lori had been our travelling companion for the last 6 weeks and we enjoyed having her along. We think that she will now understand that our trips are not all beer and skittles.