On again, off again....and back on again

Bright and early, like before 8 am, a call comes into our room.  "Hello, this is Sabine, your tour manager.  I am sorry to say that the tour is canceled.  We are trying to get you a flight home.  The company will call you when the flight arrangements are made."  Can you say rude awakening?  Apparently I took it better than Lori - I think mainly because I was still asleep and not fully functional yet.  We called the emergency hotline from the tour company to speak with them a bit more and were told that the personnel wouldn't be in until about 9 Eastern.  They're working through the weekend to help travelers make other arrangements.  Back to bed for a bit more sleep.

So, why all the hub-bub?  Oh it's nothing major, just a volcano erupting in Iceland and causing Heathrow, and all the airports in something like 10-15 European countries to close down completely because the ash is so thick.  Apparently it's gotten so bad, that planes needed for other flights are stuck in those airports, and now other airports not directly affected by the ash are having to close now too.  The Rome airport shut down yesterday afternoon for the first time, just a few hours after we landed.

But why was the tout canceled, you ask.  Well, it seems that there was a block of 40 people all traveling together, and even though they had already left San Diego for Atlanta, they decided at the last minute on Saturday morning, to cancel their trip.  Since there were only 4 of us not in that group, the entire tour got canceled.  The irony of it all?  Their flight made it into Rome with no problems.

So what to do?  Luckily we were able to catch our tour manager in the lobby of the hotel right before lunch and talk to her about our options.  Regardless of what happens, we're likely to be stuck in Rome until almost the 25th, as that's how long it will take for all the travel snarls to get unraveled and for everyone to get home.  In the meantime, go see Italy!  We decided to go see Ostia Antica as it's not on the tour, and we'll see the other tour items on a later tour date.  We even have the option to start the tour two days late and add onto another one starting on the 20th.  Off to Ostia Antica we go!

It's a good thing I had some experience with the Metro in Washington DC, because it made navigating the Rome Metro a thousand times easier.  The only challenge was the language, instead of the language plus understanding the navigation system of the Metro.  (Whew!)  A short metro ride, a transfer to a train in the Metro station, then a 20-minute train ride and we were at the ancient port of Rome, Ostia Antica.

You can't really tell from the map, but Ostia Antica (let's call it OA, shall we?) is HUGE.  This place is as big as some modern suburbs or even small cities.  We went through an entire section of mausoleums, set aside for the ashes of Roman citizens.  Then into the port proper.  A warren of shops, homes, even an amphitheater, a Roman bath, and a few piazzas.  Almost all of the port is in ruins with many of the buildings completely lost to time and covered by nothing more than grass and trees.  But what did survive is just amazing.  The amphitheather is fully functional.  They were even staging an opera this very afternoon!  The mosiacs in the different public buildings and official piazzas was just beautiful and some of them you can almost imagine how they appeared in ancient times.  The entire port area was laid out to ensure the safety of the Tiber River and Rome, and to facilitate the speedy movement of goods, people and animals into and out of the port.

To this day, you can still see where thousands upon thousands of cart wheels dug ruts in the foot-thick stones of the paved streets.  Partial columns line the road and there are countless numbers of statues - to Roman gods or important dignitaries.  Even some of the carvings and words in the mosiacs have survived to this day.  We didn't even get to see all of the port, it was just that large.  On our way back to the front of the archeological area, we noticed some grassy fields had inexplicable holes in them.  Well, only inexplicable until we came upon a new excavation site with a lot of pieces of Roman tiles and pavestones being exposed.  Even in the train station a good 1/4 mile from the "site", there was a grave marker from the 1st century BC of a husband and wife.  Who knows just how big this place is?  I would imagine it was probably solid "city" all the way from the port, to Rome, some 20-30 minutes away.

On the way back to Rome on the train, we came across a gracious and friendly couple who spoke English, and while chatting, we discovered that they were going to the Circus Maximus.  Apparently, there was a big event there today to celebrate Rome's two thousand somethingth birthday.  Can you imagine celebrating over 2000 birthdays for your hometown?  It's mind-boggling.  Since the batteries on their cameras were dead, we offered to share ours with them.  We exchanged e-mail addresses and talked a bit more about our personal lives.  Turns out they live in Arlington.  What a small world - travel half-way around the globe, only to meet and talk to people that live less than 30 minutes from you.

It turns out that the event in the Circus Maximus included re-enactments of Roman battles.  The one we say before the event ended, was the defeat of a Roman company by a group of barbarians from the present-day region of Romania.  The were in full regalia and followed the battle practices for each group.  It was really impressive to see that up-close.  There was no blood of course, but there was lots of yelling, chaos, last-minute battle instructions yelled over the clash of swords, gaps in the line closed up and the "bodies" of the soldiers left behind as the battle ranged up and down the raised corridor.  Life is funny like that.  If we hadn't started just chatting with someone because we heard them speak English, we would never have learned of the Circus Maximus event and seen that great re-enactment.  Carpe diem!

Back to the room to work on the travel arrangements, since it's late enough in the States to speak to someone about our travel plans.  And wouldn't you know it - our tour's back on again!   Because the tour on the 20th was likely to be canceled, they decided that they would offer the opportunity for us to continue the tour on a smaller scale.  I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that the tour manager is stuck here too and can't get back to the US either and it's not like she has another tour to lead in the meantime.  So we're going to play a few things by ear in regards to the optional side-trips we ordered, but at least we're going on the full tour!

Oh, we discovered that Italians are NUTS about soccer.  The team for Rome came from behind to win their conference game this afternoon, and throughout much of the night cars were driving up and down the road with drivers honking constantly, passengers cheering out the windows and waving flags.  In fact they're still celebrating.  I sure hope we can get some sleep.

On again, off again, and back on again.  And we still got to see a great ancient Roman port.  Molto bene!