Are there good beaches near Rome?
The nearest beach in Rome, and thus also the one that is most crowded, is the one at Ostia. Especially in July and August it tends to be dirty and packed with people – the Romans who do not go away on a holiday all spend there days there. On top of that the beaches, as in most of Italy, are all private and you have to pay a lot of money just to be allowed to sit somewhere and then more if you want an umbrella, beach chairs, etc.
The advantage Ostia has over other beaches near Rome is that it is easy to reach by public transport. You take the underground (metropolitana) line B to one of the following three stops: Piramide, Basilica San Paolo or EUR Magliana. There you change onto the Ostia Lido train and stay on till the last stop. It will take you more or less one hour from Rome Termini and if you want to avoid the biggest crowds and most expensive beaches you then take another bus to get you to the public beaches. The trip is also cheap: from Bed and Breakfast Chaplin Hostel Rome it will only cost you one Euro to get there and one Euro again to come back to the city.
Pleasure can also be combined with culture: on the way to Ostia you could decide to stop off at Ostia Antica and see the ruins of the ancient Roman harbor.
Other beaches near Rome that are worth visiting are Fregene and especially, though a good bit further away, Sperlonga, a beautiful town with white beaches and an immaculate, white city centre that, with its steps going off in all directions, gives the impression to have been designed by Escher. (From the Hostel Chaplin Bed & Breakfast and Rome Termini you take a train to Fondi-Sperlonga and then a bus to Sperlonga itself. Note that on Sudays there is a very limited bus schedule and when we went there, taking an afternoon off from the B&B duties we had to take a ride from a rogue taxi driver, who allowed himself to be talked down to 15 Euros.)