Sea side Roman style

It is so hot here in Rome that bel ragazzo and I set off to the beach yesterday. We went to Ostia which is easy for us as we currently live on the train line straight for the beach.

Ostia is a nice enough beach, better then some but no where near as nice as others. I didn't want to trek all the way to the free beach as this part tends to be really dirty and over crowded. Saying this I did not want to pay a small fortune for a private beach, so we went to the place I used to go two summers ago which lets you plunk yourselves down on the sand, but you get a key for a locker and access to the toilets and showers. It was then and still is only 3 euro per person and a nice little compromise. I still think it crazy that you have to pay for most of the beaches here, where as in Australia they are all free...but hey - each to their own and at least we can lock away our bags and not worry when we are in the water.

What really, really annoys me however is that the beaches are immaculate where they have the private umbrella's but as soon as they stop and you come to the sea front, there is rubbish as no one wants to clean this section as it is public! It is not even the peak beach season yet, wait till August hits and then see how dirty the place comes. We went into the relatively clean water to find a sanitary pad float by. That god it was clean...but...you get my drift (no pun intended.)