Just another day in Roma.

Headed out to Ostia Antica, another well preserved ruin, used to be an ancient Roman port. Not as impressive as Pompeii or Herculaneum, but still a fun visit. Saw some things we hadn't seen in other ruins, including a Necropolis, an awesome pub with a nice courtyard, and a public lavatory. Also impressive was the large square near the theatre and temple where merchants and businessmen plied their trade in neat offices featuring pictorial mosaics of their businesses. Once again used Rick Steve's audio tour to great effect.

We were considering eating at the ruins cafeteria, but we asked the woman at the bookshop about a restaurant I'd researched the night before. Turns out it's part of a tiny hamlet down the road, located within an old castle battlement! So we found the castle, had 30 minutes to kill before the restaurant opened, so headed into the castle itself. Then things got strange. A woman in black with dark glasses closed and locked the castle entry behind us, then ushered us in and up some stairs. Once we were near the top, she suddenly arrived behind us, out of breath, and instructed us (in Italian) to follow her downstairs. Confused, we did so, and found ourselves not only locked in a strange castle with a strange Italian woman, but also in the dungeon!

Finally we realised we were joining an already running tour, but it was all in Italian so we were pretty confused. The woman in black tried to explain a few things to us in her limited English, and we did walk around the little castle for a while. We eventually had to ask to be excused from the tour, and the woman in black was lovely and took us back outside.

Lunch in the quaint little castle village was excellent, then we headed back to Pyramide station, where an ancient magistrate had built himself a Pyramid to be buried in. Apparently it was all the vogue back in the days of Antony and Cleopatra. Quite insane. The pyramid backs onto a protestant cemetery, where we visited the graves of John Keats and Percy Shelley.

To add to the randomness of the day, we were befriended by an enthusiastic older Malaysian lady. One of the more memorable characters of the trip, she gave us some travel advice. Even though she was a seasoned??traveler??with a great passion and knowledge of history, she seemed to be constantly lost. A wonderful woman, hope we bump into her again.

Tonight I'm having a kebab. Take that, Italian cuisine!