Ostia Antica

While in Morocco last March, we visited the extensive ruins of Volubilis, the far southwestern frontier of Rome's over-extended empire. It is stunningly located at the base of a mountain overlooking a fertile plain, but now grass and wildflowers crowd the gray stones, and storks build giant nests on top of the remaining columns. Alone among the ruins, one feels very far from Rome in both space and time. The site is a poetic reminder of greatness and its inevitable demise.

Storks on columns

Two weeks later, we were at the heart of the Roman Empire, surrounded by the grandest Roman monuments: the Coliseum, the Pantheon, the Forum and Palantine Hill. More greatness, more demise, but less poetic.

But then we day-tripped from Rome to Rome's very first colony, Ostia Antica. Back in the day, this was where the Tiber River widened out into the sea, making Ostia both Rome's de facto port and its first line of defense. I thought Volubilus was impressive in size and state of general intactness. But Ostia is bigger (we only saw a fraction of it) and even better preserved (from the temples down to the tenements).

The amphitheater is still there, unsurprisingly, but so are the public latrines (next to the public baths), mosaics advertising shops, mill stones, a tavern with a honest-to-goodness bar, a small synagogue, and multi-story apartment buildings. Perhaps it was all the reminders of the normalcy of life, a theme echoed even in the surrounding countryside's pleasant but undifferentiated scenery - but Ostia was the closest I've come yet to imagining what it was like to live in a Roman city.

This was not a feeling I felt while touring Rome's Forum or Coliseum, with cars and buildings all around and crowds of tourists in the hot afternoon sun. Or in Volubilus, where Rome felt so distant and nature had a stronger narrative than the stones. But out in the Roman countryside, with the wind in the trees of neighboring orchards and the walls of everyday houses still standing, timelessness set in, and the ancient felt that much closer.

On the Roman Basilica

I have to admit: I was under-impressed by the Coliseum. After a couple hours, most of the ruins of the Forum and Palantine Hill were indistinguishable to me. An imaginative person, I nevertheless am unable to imagine what a Roman city would have looked like in its heyday.

But the Basilica of Constantine - that stopped me in my tracks. Perhaps it's because I had never heard of it, and thus did not know what to expect. And it would be pretty hard to describe it in any way that would make anyone want to go see it (unlike, say, the Coliseum).

A Top 5 List of Roman Food Moments

What I love: Food, lists, Rome.  Hence, a Top 5 list of the little food moments that made our Rome weekend so perfect:

Recipe Week #4: My Italian Soul

While I greatly appreciate the Dutch mentality (e.g., bicycling, frugality, worship of sunlight, and excellent English skills), I think my soul might be Italian. I loved Rome more than any other trip we've made this year (and not just because Jeff proposed to me there), and I could eat pasta every day for eternity (damn the consequences). Something about Italian sunshine, Italian coffee bars, Italian hand gestures, and the beauty of certain Italian cities makes me extraordinarily happy. And then there's tiramisu.

My acculturation to all things Italian is significantly furthered, of course, by the fact that I am surrounded by Italians. I work for Italians, I work with Italians; we have an Italian neighbor, we have Italian friends. Sometimes I catch myself using hand gestures and I don't even know what they mean (which is dangerous, since most hand gestures - in Italian - mean something rather crass). If only more international organizations were based in Rome...

But for now, I will settle for learning to cook decent Italian food (or, as Jeff will be quick to point out, for encouraging Jeff to learn to cook decent Italian food). Luckily, a good friend of Jeff's from northern Italy once gave him a collection of her family recipes. Here's one we made recently - though fair warning, second helpings can induce instantaneous arterial hardening.

SALSA DI GORGONZOLA – BLUE CHEESE SAUCE

4 tablespoon Butter

½ cup Flour

2 cups Milk

½ cup crumbled blue cheese

Salt

Pepper

Nutmeg

Warm up the milk, but be careful not to boil it.

Melt the butter in sauce pan. As soon as it is completely melted, add the flour. Stir continuously with a whisk until you smell something like cookies.

Add the milk very slowly and continue to mix with a whisk until the sauce is smooth, with no lumps. Add salt, pepper, nutmeg and the cheese.

Bring to a (gentle) boil and cook for about 2-3 minutes.

Use with pasta and top (if you wish) with walnuts and parsley.

Warning: This makes a lot. You might consider cutting the recipe in half unless you have a family of 10.