Ostia Antica and Eataly

---

Geo: 41.8894, 12.4947

We got started at a better pace today - by 9.15am, we were out and having a coffee at Cathy's local bar/caffe, and had already had a decent breakfast of cornflakes! The boys and I even managed to drop into St Clemente to admire the mosaics again! At 10am, we met Cathy and Ian, leapt onto a tram that took us past the Colosseo, the Circus Maximus and the FAO (where Ian works, in a building built by Mussolini) to the Pyramide - this is a 2000 year old mausoleum, built by a roman general who had seen the Egyptian pyramids. Then, onto the train that goes to the Roman Lido, to visit Ostia Antica - the ruins which, 2000 years ago, was the port for Rome. It had wharfs capable of unloading 380 ships at a time - this was a thriving city of 50,000, that just disappeared as the river changed course and the port silted up (the sea is now 3 km away).

The ruins were perfect - easily reached from Rome, and just the right level of deserted, so that the kids could run and clamber over ruins! The kids had read a series of books based in Ostia, and were fascinated to walk the streets of that same town, 2000 years later. We found the theatre, lots of temples and baths, fantastic mosaics and frescos, and the most gorgeous statue of Amore and Pysche. All of it was open to climb over, touch and really feel - although some parts have been roped off for further exploration. We could have spent even more time here - at one point, Georgia asked if we could come back tomorrow! I hope that it really fired their imaginations!

Then, after a lovely pasta meal at the museum cafe, we headed back into Rome and stopped at Eataly. The best way to describe this is a 3 storey gourmet food store, with everything being fresh - we bought some lovely pear and pecorino ravioli (as well as some beef ravioli) to take home for a dinner tonight. There were hundreds of different cheeses, pastas, meats, beers, wines - everything! Certainly something to see, and it's location in a disused train station was very clever.

Home for a few minutes before Mass at St Clemente, then dinner with Cathy and Ian - another lovely day!

---