Travel Break: Rome Part 3

Rome

On our next day in Rome, we visited Ostia Antica, which was an ancient Roman town that is pretty much entirely still there. True, the buildings are all in some state of ruin (being over 2,000 years old) but it's amazing how a complete town survived the way Ostia did. Apparently, it was just abandoned over several years a long time ago and left the way it was for the rest of time! Osta took most of our morning and early afternoon and was well worth the amount of time we spent there. For one, it was great to get out of the really touristy parts of Rome. Rome was amazing, but extremely crowded everywhere you go, which could get a little old. And you really could just walk around Ostia anywhere you wanted (except in a few specific places that were roped off.) We were allowed to climb ancient stairs to the tops of ancient buildings and look out and see a view of even more ancient buildings. There was a complete theatre, a temple to Jupiter, a house where a religious cult held there headquarters, and a bar! There was also an ancient public bathroom, where people could use toilets side by side. And what's amazing about that is that the Ostians actually had a system of continuously running water that would not be matched in terms of hygiene until the 20th century! Truly amazing, from my public health student perspective! My favorite part though, besides simply exploring the massive maze of buildings was the market square, where the foundations of all the stores remained. But what was really cool, though, was that in front of each store on the ground lay a stone mosaic with a picture of what services were offered in that store. The mosaics showed boats, pots, fish, bread, and much more. Essentially it was an ancient mall, storefront advertising and all.

Me in Ostia

The theatre

Ancient Public Bathroom

Market, with some visible storefront mosaics

In the evening we took a trip to the capitol. After climbing a very long hill (Rome is hilly) we were greeted by a statue of a man on a horse. This statue of Marcus Aurelius is the first known equestrian statue and is believed to be the inspiration for every statue of a man on a horse since then! Inside the capitol museum was pretty awesome as well. We saw old chariots, more marble statues, more pots (less boring than it sounds, I swear), as well as a pretty cool temporary exhibit on Michelangelo. Let me just say, that man was pretty impressive. He had paintings, sculptures, buildings, intelligent writings, the Sistine chapel and probably more stuff I'm forgetting about. So it was pretty cool to see a lot of his original work all in one place!

The Capitol

Today was a very gelato heavy day as well. We got gelato twice! One time I got three scoops and one time I got two, meaning I tried five different flavors! Delicious! My gelato flavors included: Chocolate, chocolate mousse, hazelnut, mixed berry, and cream. All of them were excellent.

Our final complete day in Rome was another very walking-heavy day. First we visited a pretty neat graveyard with a giant Egyptian-style pyramid. It was kind of bizarre to see something like that in the middle of Italy. In this graveyard, there were the graves of some famous people including the writers Percy Shelly and John Keats. Keats' grave was interesting because his name was nowhere on it, per his request. Instead, his lifelong friend is buried next to him. His grave reads something to the effect of 'buried next to his friend, John Keats.' I think this is interesting, because it's kind of sad for the friend, that his entire epitaph is based on the fact that he was friends with someone famous, instead of having anything to do with his own life. Another interesting grave was the one for 'Denmark.' That was all the grave said, no years, words etc. So I'm very curious as to what was buried under there and how the country I currently live in died and came to be buried in Italy. This grave was right next to the grave for 'Bulgaria' but these were the only two countries I found in the cemetery.

Pyramid at the Cemetery

Another thing we saw was an ancient landfill, of sorts. Basically, it was a gigantic hill, but if you went to the side you could see that everything in the hill was stacked up layers of ceramic. Apparently the entire hill was made of shards from amphoras of all the olive oil that was shipped into Rome! And they had so many that they just didn't know what to do so they made huge hills of them. We also encountered the Circus Maxiumus, where chariot races used to be held. However, now the Roman government is using it for military exercises, so there were all sorts of fancy camouflage planes down there.

Circus Maximus

One of my two favorite things of the day were the Termes of Caracalla: the ancient Roman baths. This bathhouse was massive! Apparently it was big enough to accommodate over 1,600 bathers at once. And it has so more than just bathing facilities. In ancient times there would have been a library, sports facilities, barbers, dentists, tailors, swimming pools, and more! And most importantly, there was running water! Walking around what is basically an ancient YMCA was amazing. So amazing, in fact, that my roommates for the trip and I decided to spell out YMCA in the middle of the baths for a photo, which was definitely fun.

Baths

My other favorite site of the day was the Tempietto, which means 'The Little Temple.' On my trip I definitely saw some amazingly large churches, such as the largest in the world in the Vatican and later the 2nd largest in the world in Prague. But this temple was so small that I really liked it. It was a circle covered in columns which could not have been more than ten feet in diameter. A very cozy church, indeed. Also, it has some significance, as it is the place where St. Peter is believed to have been crucified, upside-down, according to legend. So now I can see I've seen St. Peter's tomb (in the cathedral named for him) and the site of his crucification.

The Tempieto

Of course, this day like the rest included some excellent food. Sadly, we did not meet our goal of eating gelato every day. But that is because today we had two other amazing Italian deserts: cannolis and tiramisu! Both were awesome. The cannoli was gigantic and delicious, although the place we ate it was filled with pigeons and smelled bad, so that may have detracted from the cannoli experience a little. And the tiramisu was one of the greatest things ever.

Canolli

The next day was mostly a day of travel. This is where my friend Katherine and I broke off from the larger group and made our own way to the train station, to the airport, and ultimately to Prague, which I will write about in the coming days.

Goodbye Rome!