May 20^th

The beach

So today was my birthday, a fact I was unaware of because I had managed to mix up the dates and believed today to be the 19^th.

There are fountains all over the place in Rome that are basically just little spigots running into a drain or a basin.  They’re part of the old water system and they draw from springs.  They’re safe to drink from but I had held back until today watching the locals just to make sure.  It’s a cool idea and everyone seems to use them, particularly to rinse their hands and face on a hot day.

It was Sunday, so I figured if I wanted to see the beach in full swing, I’d better go now or wait an entire week.  Rome is about 15 miles from the coast.  The thing is, I wasn’t sure where the beach was; my guide book went so far as to claim that Lazio doesn’t even have any real beaches.  There is an ancient ruin site right on the coast called Ostia Antica, so I figured I’d take a trip out and see if I couldn’t locate the beach while I was at it.

As soon as I got on the train I knew I was headed in the right direction given that it was packed with young Romans holding their beach towels.  The route guide over the door showed choppy water icons on three of the stops near the end, undoubtedly indicating beach access.

I noted my discoveries and then exited at Ostia Antica.  The first stop was a nice medieval castle called Castello della Rovere.

Castello della Rovere

This isn’t all that old – 1483. It’s unusual in that it is a triangular castle.  I couldn’t get inside.  I found a little town hiding behind the castle, encompassed by a wall.  I appeared to have arrived just as church was getting out and all the townsfolk were standing in the plaza having their post-sermon community chat.

The townsfolk were all off to the right, I was preoccupied with how the wall was adapted into part of the house on the left.

Ostia Antica was Rome’s port back in the BC years.  It was abandoned and covered in river mud and preserved much in the same way as the better-known Pompeii.  I was surprised by how big the ruins are; Ostia Antica really was a small city.

A tomb – the recesses were for cremation urns

First came the tombs, and was basically what I was expecting; lots of walls just over head-height that look like a rat’s maze from above.  I managed to make myself impressed.  I mean it was pretty cool that I was free to get down in the ruins.  And, hey, that thing is kind of cool – it looks kind of like skulls combined with a sun motif.

I kept walking and then I saw this huge bath mosaic and I though, oh this is much cooler.  And then next came a rather sizable amphitheater and when I got to the top I could see that I hadn’t even really entered the city yet.

this was at least 50 feet across

The amphitheater from the back and the front

Left - If that’s not an ancient marble toilet, then I don’t know what it is.

Right – There are a lot of nuns on vacation in and around Rome (none of them look anything like a young Mary Tyler Moore)

The ruins were so expansive that it was pretty easy to be completely alone, which, in a child-like way made the experience much better.  I dashed about tracing an underground aqueduct system until it led me to a bath house, did a little ‘wall jumping’ to get myself up onto elevated ruins, and located a number of shady hidden corners.  Unfortunately residual stiffness was starting to build in my body so I took lunch at a cafeteria on the premises and listened in on an elderly British couple gripe and gossip about the other members of their tour group (but in the most polite way possible).  For some reason, in almost every situation that I could, I pretended that I didn’t understand English.

I got back on the train and headed for the beach.  There was no sight of the ocean from the train station so I followed a pair of girls who appeared headed for the beach and afforded a view worthy of my attention in the interim (one of them had impossibly long legs, which I’m sure is what the old Italian man was observing when they walked by and he shouted after them). 

Just as I was growing concerned that I wouldn’t remember the way back, we arrived at the public beach.  Romans have an unhealthy love of the sun.  They are completely cooked.  Despite popular belief, practically no one (under thirty five) was wearing a Speedo.  It was nice to see that the modesty of American swimwear has reached the Romans – only a few old timers seemed determined to hang it out.  The beach was much too crowded, so I decided I’d stroll along until I found a better spot.

The public beach

It turns out, everyone is packed into a tiny stretch of beach roughly 50 yards wide because 95% of the beach is private property.  They’ve got these little communities of beach shacks that I’m guessing are available to rent.  Some of them are pretty cheap and basic, but others looked like little resorts with restaurants, bars and swimming pools.

private beach shacks

I made it to the next public beach, which was as packed as the first, and decided I might as well turn back.  When I got back to the first public beach I sat down on the embankment and enjoyed the sun for a while.  I was wearing pants because everyone in Rome wears pants, no matter how hot it is.  I probably should have had more faith in my beach-locating abilities and just worn shorts but that’s how it goes.  So I stripped down to my underwear and, no, not really.  I enjoyed the sun, did some people watching, noted the complete lack of waves on the Tyrrhenian and then went home.  There wasn’t exactly a beach-front community with anything else to do or see:

For some reason there were a couple ponies tethered in a little park on the way to the beach.  The park was practically empty, so I can’t figure why they were there.  Pony rides?  Aren’t ponies expensive, is this really a viable business venture?  I don’t know.  Ponies are kind of ugly, they look like down syndrome horses, I’m not sure why little girls would be attracted to them.

Some time later in the day, I figured I should give Santa Maria Maggiore a visit.  It was, after all, right around the corner from my hotel and is one of the four major pilgrimage churches of Rome.

Santa Maria Maggiore (Maggiore means ‘Major’ – as in Big Mother of Christ! - literally)

This is one of the oldest churches in Rome (even though the outside has been redone in the Baroque style) and defines the word ‘Basilica.’  Basilicas were ancient Roman public halls.  There was nothing religious about them.  They were just big rectangular buildings with two rows of columns running lengthwise and a gallery along each side.  The Christians based their churches off of the old Basilicas, in some cases literally converting them.  From what I’ve seen, the actual Roman temples tended to be circular and in most cases much smaller.  The most famous artistic elements in Maria Maggiore are the mosaics that you can see above the columns. Evidently they are quite old, rare and valuable.  They are also in quite good condition, but too high up to photograph well:

The mosaic is rectangular. This one appears to depict a bunch of guys with spears killing each other.

I guess that’s everything – hey, isn’t that the illuminati pyramid?  According to this government site for kids, the eye on the pyramid on the American dollar was taken from ancient religious iconography to represent the eye of god.  The triangle bounding it is pretty obviously the holy trinity.  I guess the dollar isn’t all that mysterious after all – it’s just a subtle Christian reference.

Meals can be really exhausting.  I had only one course this time – gnocchi (gnyo-kye) but I had a small bottle of Chianti which soon became irrefutable proof of the amplified effects of alcohol on fatigue.  In my drunkenness I ordered pan-something-or-other which turned out to be a delicious cooked cream.  One nice thing about being drunk in a restaurant in Rome is, if you are sitting outside, there is no end of things to watch and no one will try to pressure you out of your seat.

Link to page 5