Ostiense is what Rome did with its industry once the industry left: kept the bones, painted the walls, and put marble gods in a power station. It is the least antique corner of the ancient city, and the most surprising.
Begin at the Via del Porto Fluviale mural, Blu's wall of staring faces on an old barracks, eyes cut from the building's own windows. It launched the quarter as an open-air gallery, and the streets east are still repainted yearly. Pass the failed air terminal that became Eataly, then drop south to the walk's centrepiece.
Centrale Montemartini is the reason to come: Rome's first power station, where the city parked its overflow of classical sculpture among the diesel engines. A reclining Venus against a black turbine — nobody arranged it as art and yet it is the best curation in Rome. Out from there, the Gazometro looms, ninety metres of empty iron frame, the city's accidental tower. End by the iron bridge over the Tiber, then loop back to Garbatella and the Metro B.
