Rome's harbour town, and its best preserved. Ostia guarded the mouth of the Tiber and fed the capital: warehouses, a forum, a theatre, apartment blocks that rose several storeys, and the mosaic floors of the guild offices, each advertising a trade in black-and-white pictures. When the river silted up and Rome shrank, Ostia was abandoned rather than built over, so it survives as a working port frozen in time. It is what Pompeii would be if Pompeii had been a commercial city, and it sits half an hour from central Rome.
Description via source. Coordinates and heritage data from the Atika atlas.
Atika pings you when you walk or drive past heritage like this. Works offline, no account needed to explore.
Short, true stories of overlooked heritage sites, drawn from the Atika atlas. Free, no spam.