Ostia

I have never been well-disposed towards Ostia. Maybe because of an old Gerald Seymour novel, I read it before I came to live in Italy, which described only too eloquently the seediness and filth of its free beaches (also something very nasty happens to a female character there). Maybe because it's where writer/poet/film director, Pier Paolo Pasolini was murdered. It could also be because of the constant Ostia Mafia stories in the local press. 

All too evidently it could be because of the level of pollution. The mouth of the Tiber empties its filth into the sea at Fiumicino, where Rome's biggest airport is located. It pollutes the beaches along the coast causing mountains of foam on the beaches, waters so murky that your limbs become invisible as soon as you enter them, and large tides of blooming toxic algae responsible for nasty skin rashes which extend as far up the coast as Fregene. This doesn't stop thousands upon thousands of Romans from heading to the coast as soon as the hot weather hits the city. It may be, as is said of the Neapolitan and the bacteria filled water of the bay of Naples, that Romans, having grown up and every summer bathed in the waters of Ostia, are immune to whatever they may encounter there. 

Ostia is connected to Rome via a direct train line which also stops at Ostia Antica, a far more worth while place to visit than Ostia Lido. The modern town was developed in 1884 near the ancient settlement after reclamation of some  malaria-mosquito-infested marshland (the pond of Ostia). Once the train line opened  in 1924 the resort became a Roman favorite and many Art Nouveau houses were built along the sea front.

After the second world war many beach establishments (stablimenti) were built on the beach. This lead to a boom in tourism further enhanced by the opening of the Cristoforo Colombo avenue which connects Ostia to the EUR district in Rome. A road only too well-known nowadays for its high levels of fatalities. However, as of the early 1970s the effects of pollution began to be noticed and less people came to the beaches. Thus began Ostia's decline. 

Going there on a busy weekday morning, as I waited for the train at the station of San Paolo I was puzzled by the contradictory information that kept flashing up : treno fuori servizio (train not running) then followed by 'next train to Ostia:11.33'. I wasn't the only one confused. However, as there were quite a few people on the platform it looked as if the train was running. It was. At a punctual 11.39 it rolled in, reminding me of its nickname the 'misery' line. The Rome Ostia line is notorious for its frequent breakdowns, delays and at rush hour over-crowding which has lent it another unattractive nickname: 'the cattle shuttle.' Just a few hours earlier the train had been stopped for an hour between Ostia Antica and Acilia because of a 'guasto' (breakdown).
 My trip was uneventful, a slow trundle through the dusty suburbs of the city past vast clumps of overgrown weeds and grasses, some yellow grass fields and blocks upon blocks of siena, ochre, bronze buildings in differing states of disrepair.

I came out of the station underpass onto a vast piazza full of yellowing trees and dotted with bus stops. Round the square ran a covered arcade full of typical seaside shops touting beach toys, swimsuits and other sea paraphernalia as well as an ice-cream shop (gelateria), a bar and a large supermarket. I was headed seawards, basically a straight line from the central station. 

I crossed a street, walked past a closed funfair and in front of a church, Santa Maria Regina Pacis. It all looked abandoned and forlorn. Broken beer bottles and cans littered the pavement. I crossed another street in front of the town hall, the Palazzo del Governatorato: it's a vast edifice, it was built in 1924 and elaborately decorated with a dark sea-themed design all over its facade. It once housed a primary school.

I walked down a pedestrian street towards the sea front and the long line of bathing establishments. The area had been cleaned up and lots of restaurants offering various takes on sea food and fish have popped up since the last time I was there. 

 I crossed over onto the lungomare and the pontile an inelegant cement structure that extended out to sea. The water was still murky and the beaches were largely deserted. The season hadn't yet started. A lone crow seemed to be enjoying the sea breeze close to an over-tanned elderly woman who appeared to be preening herself and smiling in a way that suggested she might have been a few clams short of a bouillabaisse. A couple were taking a selfie, at least there weren't any high walls for them to fall off. I watched the waves ebbing and flowing, breaking in a foamy mass over some rocks. A lone surfer glided by. It was hot. 

I walked back towards the central square, a small fenced off path led to a tiny free beach. It looked as if the town council weren't giving away too much for free. But I knew that the larger free beaches were out of town at the cancelli (the gates) setting of a nightmarish scene in a Seymour thriller. 

In recent years, Ostia has hit the headlines only too often with Mafia related tales and scandals. Drug raids, savage attacks against reporters, drive by shootings and the like pepper the Ostian daily routine. The current Mayor, Virginia Raggi, has vowed to fight the scourge but as Ostia residents only too well know: "if you don't see anything, and you don't say anything, you've got a good chance of making it to an old age." The problem persists.