Day 5 found me leaving Rome to visit the nearby ruins of Ostia Antica.

Originally, I had planned for a day trip down to Pompeii. I wanted to stand in the shadow of Vesuvius before I die, but that will have to wait till the end of this year where I can hopefully go again.

Ruins are my thing - utterly boring, but damned fascinating. I mean, seriously, they are just crumbling pieces of history. But to walk where in a town born two thousand years ago, where people once lived, is humbling.

Being not a student of archaeology, and not a history buff either, I find it difficult to appreciate certain aspects, but simpler stuff, like visiting a inn, or a pub, a shopping district, it drives one to ask: what is it like, to live in the days before electricity, where fires could wipe out an entire city in the blink of an eye...