Ostia Antica
 

We will be staying in Fiumicino and are thinking of visiting Ostia Antica. We will have a rental car. Is there parking at the site? Is there an extra charge to park? Thanks.

Guide to Ostia Antica:
http://www.ostia-antica.org/touristguide.pdf

"If you arrive by car, you can use a parking lot in front of the entrance of the excavations."

No mention of a charge.

Ostia Antica has everything Pompeii has except the history. However, Ostia possesses two amenities conspicuously absent from Pompeii: 1. a breeze blowing in from the sea, and 2. SHADE.

We've been to both Ostia Antica and Pompeii, enjoyed them both, but Ostia was a more comfortable environment. Plus, Ostia Antica is closer. If you are going to Ostia Antica you could also go over to Lido di Ostia, which is a seaside resort. You can find lots of nightlife in the warm weather.

Buon viaggio,

do not leave anything of value in sight in a parked car - put it in the trunk if possible - no luggage, etc. This is true all over Italy and much of Europe.

Actually, Ostia has a lot more history than Pompeii. For centuries it was the port that brought food to Rome, and from which travelers arrived from all over the Empire, and from where they left. During the Punic Wars, it was the Roman naval base. It was a battleground during the Civil Wars of the first century BC. It was a busy, cosmopolitan city, with Egyptian temples, a synagogue, Chistian churches, and a Mithraic temple, as well as Roman temples.

When the Roman Empire began to fade, the port silted up. Pirates and raiders began to threaten the coast. The inhabitants turned the amphitheater into a fortified refuge to which people could repair during a raid. The water supply and sewers fell out of repair. The local church moved to a spot a bit further inland, for safety, and at some time a fortification was built near the church, to protect people during raids. This became a castle, which is just outside the archaelogical site, and can be visited. Altogether, Ostia was a thriving town for nearly 1000 years.

Pompeii was just a backwater residential town, a suburb of Naples. It had been destroyed by an earthquake at least once, and another earthquake had heavily damaged it shortly before the eruption of Vesuvius that was its final destruction. Really its end was its only important history.

Pompeii was actually a seaside resort for the wealthy from Rome that they used to get away from the heat in the summer. Also made popular by a couple of the caesars who had villas on Capri.

How far is the site from the Best Western hotel in Fiumcino? we will be overnighting there before our morning trip home the next day. I thought we would pass a few hours at the site before checking into the hotel (we will be driving from Orvietto) but perhaps it would be safer to check into the hotel first and drop off our luggage