Tour Guide, Rome, Italy
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A lot of tourist that visit Rome don't visit Ostia Antica, missing one of the most beautiful archeological site of Italy.
After Pompeii It is the best-preserved Roman cities until the present day and in addition has the advantage of being near the capital and easily accessible by subway .
I like to say that Ostia is the Roman city par excellence, more than Rome itself ! Rome with its winding streets , open spaces and later stages of life is perhaps a little '"disjointed" as it is affected by its "spontaneous" birth .
Ostia instead meets all the criteria that the precise Roman architects imprinted in all the cities which they built.
Perpendicular streets give to the city the typical appearance of the military town ; presence of the three spaces inevitable in every Roman city: Capitolium (the temple where theypried the sum divine triad : Jupiter , Juno and Minerva ) ; the theater auditorium and stage still functional and used on summer evenings ; the many bath buildings (SPA) where the Romans refresh their selves.You should not miss the Baths of the Forum that you can cross still following the path who made the Ancients : from the rooms cooler to the warmer with or without swimming pools; or you can go down the social ladder and go through the dungeons where slaves worked to keep the spa on and find out how swimming pools and rooms were heated up .
You can not miss the public baths of ancient Rome (where privacy was not the highlight ) , the popinae ( the ancient fast food ) , the fulloniche ( ancient laundries where urine was emploies to disinfect the clothes) , the ancient harbor ( far from the river today ) with the square of the merchant said Corporazioni. All that and much more awaits you at Ostia .