Ostia Antica: No less an authority than the Blue Guide to Rome has this to say about Ostia Antica:
“The excavations of the city of Ostia are one of the most interesting and beautiful sights near Rome. The ruins, in a lovely park of umbrella pines and cypresses, give a remarkable idea of the domestic and commercial life of the Empire in the late 1st-2nd centuries AD and are as important for the study of Roman Urban architecture as the ruins of Pomepii and Herculaneum.”
Ostia served as Rome’s major port for centuries. It now sits two miles inland, but was originally sited on the former mouth of the Tiber, Ostium Tiberis, from which it takes its name. Shortly before the onset of the first Punic war in 264 BC Ostia had become the Roman fleet’s principal base. It soon increased in importance as a port for Rome’s provisions. The town flourished in the first and second centuries AD, when it had a population in excess of 50,000 inhabitants. Because the Tiber was silting up, the Emperor Claudius moved the fleet to the newly built Portus Romae to the north of Ostia. The town’s decline began when Portus Romae was declared autonomous by Constantine in 314.
For more information about the archaeological excavations, click here. Trains leave every 15 minutes from Stazione Ostiense. The journey to Ostia Antica takes 30 minutes and the excavations are a short walk from the station.
| 
