A self-guided audio walking tour of Ostia, the harbour city at the mouth of the Tiber that grew from a fourth-century BC fort into Rome's port, with an estimated fifty thousand people in the second century AD, before trade moved to Portus. It starts among the tombs outside the Porta Romana and follows the Decumanus Maximus past the Baths of Neptune and their mosaics, the barracks of the vigiles, Agrippa's theatre and the Square of the Guilds, where the shipping offices' mosaic floors show ships, dolphins and an elephant. Then come the Four Small Temples, the House of Apuleius and the Mithraeum of the Seven Spheres, the sanctuary of Magna Mater, the great grain warehouses, a mill, the House of Diana and a thermopolium with its painted menu. The Forum follows, with the Capitolium, the Temple of Rome and Augustus, the Basilica, the Forum Baths and a twenty-seat public latrine. The walk ends in the western quarter: the builders' guild house, the Schola del Traiano, the House of Cupid and Psyche, the Baths of the Seven Sages, the Serapeum, the Porta Marina and the synagogue near the old shore.
36 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 190 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 69 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Necropolis of the Via Ostiense, Porta Romana, Baths of the Cisiarii, Baths of Neptune, Barracks of the Vigiles, Horrea of Hortensius, Theatre, Square of the Guilds, Four Small Temples, House of Apuleius, Mithraeum of the Seven Spheres, Domus della Fortuna Annonaria.
Campo della Magna Mater, Grandi Horrea, Mill on the Via dei Molini, House of Diana, Thermopolium of the Via di Diana, House of Jupiter and Ganymede, Museo Ostiense, Horrea Epagathiana, Capitolium, Forum, Temple of Rome and Augustus, Basilica, Forum Baths, Forica, the public latrine.
Caseggiato dei Triclini, Schola del Traiano, Christian Basilica, House of Cupid and Psyche, Baths of the Seven Sages, Insula of the Charioteers, Serapeum, Porta Marina, Tomb of C. Cartilius Poplicola, Synagogue.
The portico behind the theatre, its black-and-white mosaic floors naming guilds and cities among ships, dolphins and an elephant.
A Mithraic shrine whose mosaics show seven spheres along the aisle and zodiac signs and planetary gods on the benches.
A Hadrianic food and drink bar with its marble counter and a painted menu on the wall behind, castanets included.
The temple to Jupiter, Juno and Minerva at the head of the Forum, its brick still pocked with holes from its lost marble veneer.
Baths with a twelve-metre hunting mosaic and a painting of the Seven Sages above comic Latin jokes about the toilet.
The hall of Ostia's Jewish community near the old shore, with a menorah, shofar, etrog and lulav carved by the Torah shrine.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 36 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 36 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Ostia Antica — Rome's Harbour City, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
36 narration points, including Porta Romana, Baths of Neptune, Mithraeum of the Seven Spheres, Domus della Fortuna Annonaria and Campo della Magna Mater. That is about 62 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~1–2 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 36 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.