Mary�s brother Everett passed away April 12. He will be greatly missed but will always be fondly remembered whenever we think back of our travels in Italy. During February and March Everett called quite often while we were sightseeing, always interested to know what we were seeing. Now fond memories of Everett will be forever linked with our Italian memories.
An extra amount of time was spent in April getting our boat ready for the cruising season. This year the boat was unusually dirty due to the winter storms, especially those storms which brought the red sand from the Sahara. Everything on the boat was thickly coated with this caked dirt and had to be cleaned.
Before departing Rome the end of April, we visited the archeological site of Ostia Antica, just three miles inland from where our marina was located on the Mediterranean Sea. 2000 years ago this Roman port town of Ostia Antica was at the edge of the Mediterranean Sea and the Tiber River, but over time the river shifted course burying much of the city in silt, helping to preserve it. Unlike Pompeii which was a more up-scale city, Ostia Antica was a working class port town full of apartment buildings, shops, warehouses, and baths. At its peak it was quite densely populated with about 60,000 inhabitants. Here, just like in Pompeii, the plumbing was one of the Roman marvels. In fact, the Roman civil engineering was so sophisticated that many of the water and sewage systems put in place by the ancient Romans are still in use today in central Rome. |
