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Ostia

- Spending a day at the beach

by MadSuh 

(about Ostia Lido, Italy, added on Jun 13, 2009)

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We left a bit late to the beach the next day, but it turns out that we still had way too much sun that day. It wasn't really hot, but then the sun is too strong for anyone not used to it.

Getting out to Ostia is not too easy, so if you go by car, it's important to have someone describe it to you in detail. Apparently, google maps did not do a good job at it either, so that my sis asked the guard of their apartment building to draw up directions. It turned out to be rather easy. What neither my sis was thinking of nor the guard, was the way back, which is really difficult, as you many of the roads are one way streets, so you can't get back the same way...

Anyhow, the day at the beach was nice. While most people say that Ostia is really ugly, I rather liked it. When you reach Ostia, you need to drive down South a few kilometers in order to reach some quiet nice beaches. We met some people at the beach that also took care of our stuff whenever we wanted to go to the coffeeshop or go for a swim. The water was nice, not too hot, but once you were in there, it was indeed nice.

After a day of burning our bodies to death, we ended up looking for a nice place to grab dinner. This is when I realized why Romans don't like Ostia, well, they don't care about it. Run-down houses, ugly streets and worst of all, when we were looking for Ostia Antica, the ancient port town of Rome, we simply couldn't find any signs telling us where to go. They simply don't care about this place, because they have so much history in Rome itself that nobody cares about Ostia. Anyhow, this was a bit sad I thought and also the places we found for dinner were rather expensive as well as crap in terms of food quality.

The day was beautiful nevertheless, even though we had a somewhat disappointing finish. The drive home was rather adventurous.

 

Start from beginning | 1 - 8          Journal overview

1. May 14, 2009 Flying out to Cluj (Cluj-napoca)  ( 17)
2. May 15, 2009 A few days in Cluj (Cluj-napoca)  ( 12)
3. May 18, 2009 My trip to Oradea (Oradea)  ( 11)
4. Jun 1, 2009 Rome (Rome)  ( 5)
5. Jun 2, 2009 The first day in Rome (Rome)  ( 34)
6. Jun 3, 2009 Ostia (Ostia Lido)  ( 32)
7. Jun 4, 2009 Rome - Saint Peter (Rome)  ( 20)
8. Jun 5, 2009 Pantheon, the Spanish Stairs & Fontane di Trevi (Rome)  ( 27)

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