Ostia Antica

I only heard about Ostia, the ruins of the ancient port of Rome, when I read up on things for this trip. It's a great discovery: the city was abandoned as Rome declined because, well, everything was declining and the harbor silted up. In fact, the Tiber River changed its course. This meant that a city was gradually buried without needing a catastrophe like the volcano that preserved Pompeii and Herculaneum. Of course, like other sites, when folks in later times rediscovered Ostia, they plundered it. But a huge amount remains, especially if you like wandering around ghost towns. (The early Ostians even used mud bricks like western US natives.) Here is a sampling of pics.