Day 43 Rome:

Well it was our last full day of our holiday today and what a fantastic day it was, one of the best days we have had. We wanted to get out of Rome on a day trip today but we were undecided on what to do. We did initially want to go to Pompeii but once we found out it was a 5-6 hour round trip we changed our mind. We got talking to a very friendly Indian guy in the souvenir shop we have been to a few times downstairs near our apartment the other day who claims to be Harbhajan Singh’s cousin. I said “That’s amazing mate, because I’m Ricky Ponting’s brother!!” Anyway, he told us about Ostia Antica, a place of ruins that used to be a thriving port town back in the first century AD with reports of 100,000 residents. We did a bit of research and the place sounded interesting and it was only 45 minutes away via a couple of trains. So we get walking up to the main train terminal which is about a 20 minute walk to catch the metro to the Pyrimide station which is about 4 stops. We follow the signs to our next train on the Lido line and this takes about 20-30 minutes to get to Ostia Antica. We had no idea about this place before being told and the only half decent info we could get was from Rick Steve’s website. We followed “Ricks” instructions and got there with ease. We started wandering around this place and our initial impressions were “this looks like it could be a little bit boring”. But as we continued on this ancient city that dates back more than 2000 years to the times of Christ just starts to appear in front of us and we are gobsmacked. We really felt like we got a great feeling for what it was like living back in this time. The awesomeness of this place cannot be explained and it’s one of those “you have to be there” sort of things to really appreciate it. For us, this place was so amazing that we reckon it is as good as the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, that’s how good it is. We even enjoyed it more than the Colosseum and that place is amazing. We spent pretty much the whole day there and could have stayed longer but it was getting late and we didn’t arrive back at our apartment until about 6pm. So we clean up and head out for dinner to our favourite Rome restaurant, Grill & Wine. Another fantastic meal and we get a snap of the kids with their favourite waiter. When we go to this restaurant the waiter always serves us and he calls Mia “princess” and Tyler “champion” and they lap it up. We leave there and go down to see our mate Valentino. We get our usual fix of gelato before getting a group snap with him as well. After that it’s off to our other mate, Habhajan’s cousin to buy a few more kg’s for the suitcase and then it’s off to the apartment to pack. It was great way to round off a great day and a fantastic holiday.