Ostia Antico questions

Ostia Antica is easy to reach from Rome. Take the metro to the Piramide station then walk a few metres to the Porta San Paola station next door. The train takes less than half an hour but make sure you get off at the Ostia Antica station otherwise you end up in the resort of Ostia. The site of Ostia is about a 10- 15 minutes walk from the station. You can buy your tickets at the site and pick up a good map of the ruins there. Cost is 9€ according to the website ostiaantica.beneculturali.it where you can buy tickets on line. Note the site is closed on Mondays. I was there in October and it was practically empty - very pleasant to wander without crowds of people! There is a good gift/bookstore and a decent cafe for lunch.

I spent an enjoyable day there and thoroughly recommend it. Ostia was a working port city unlike Pompeii or Herculaneum and was not destroyed in a cataclysmic manner like those two cities...rather the river silted up and the city was abandoned.

When you go to Ostia Antica, be sure to take Rick Steves' book along for the self-guided tour. As I was walking around reading it to my son as we toured, I actually attracted a couple of people who wanted to follow along as they had nothing to guide them.

If you want to go to the beach you need to take the train from OA to Ostia. Just buy that ticket when you buy the first ticket. It is just one additional stop. There is a small snack bar and restrooms in the park.

There are also buses to the Ostia Lido beaches from Ostia Antica.

I agree with the advice to take the Rick Steves' guide with you for two reasons. One, his guided walk around the site is excellent. Some in our group got the audio guides available at the site and others followed along as my daughter read aloud Rick's walking tour. I abandoned the audio tour that I got from the site after about an hour and found that I liked following Rick's tour much more. Also, when we came out of the train station, we couldn't find signage to get to the archeological site, so I pulled out our Rick Steves' Rome book and found detailed (of course!) instructions for the 10-15 minute walk from the station. Another group had gotten off the train at the same time and they too were wondering where to go. When they heard I had directions, it was "follow that lady!" I waved the blue guide over my head and ended up with quite a group trailing me as I followed Rick's directions. It's actually not that hard. Take the overpass over the busy road and keep going straight ahead. You can't miss it.

It's not clear to me from the responses whether your question about the beaches in Ostia Lido being public has been answered - and I'm not sure I have the answer! There are certainly beaches that are open to the public: the kind with lounge chairs and umbrellas for rent. I don't know whether there are any free beaches - hopefully someone else will know. I admit I'm not a beach person, but I didn't find the beaches near the town of Ostia Lido very appealing. The train from Antica to Ostia Lido first stops at Ostia Nord and then Ostia Centro. From Centro it's a bit over a half-mile walk to the beach. There are then three further train stops along the beach to the south which appear to be much closer to the ocean. I have not been in that direction; maybe someone else here has been and will comment.

We used the RS audio tour when we were there. Highly recommend it.