28 February 2024 – Salerno
Miles driven today = 26
Total Miles to date = 1,767
Back on the road today, although certainly nowhere near the longest day’s driving of the trip. We hopped off the toll road for a quick Lidl stop at Pagani and then hopped straight back on again and were soon emerging from a tunnel high above Vietri sul Mare before snaking our way down to the municipal paid Sosta on the seafront in Salerno.
Salerno is basically a port town and a lot of its historical buildings were flattened when allied forces landed here during WWII. The main reason for us coming here is it is a jump off point in order to get a bus or ferry along the Amalfi Coast. But seeing as we were here with nothing planned for the afternoon we thought we would have a look around, so we hopped on a Number 5 bus and quickly found ourselves in Via Mercanti in the heart of the old town.
A short distance away is the Duomo (Cathedral) with its attendant Bell Tower. The entrance is via a cloistered square. By all accounts there are some amazing ceiling paintings inside and it is also believed to be the final resting place of St Matthew, but to enter you had to buy a €10 ticket with combined access to a couple of museums, which we weren’t really interested in, so we left it.
The columns around the cloisters were apparently pinched from the Greek Temples at Paestrum, which we intend having a look at on our next stop on the road after we leave here.
There is also a large sarcophagus on which the elements have rather taken their toll.
The town’s aqueduct system dates back as far as the 9th Century and is sourced from 3 different rivers.
This higher level branch is a more recent addition dating from Norman times.
We strolled back down to the seafront and rewarded ourselves with a couple of beers before walking back to the van.
On the way, we popped in at the marina where the ferries along the coast leave from and found the ticket office firmly closed with a big notice advising that all sailings today had been cancelled so we have assumed it will be a similar story tomorrow.
Visibility today has been rather poor and we had a few spots of rain earlier with considerably more of the wet stuff forecast tomorrow. So we will take the proverbial rain check in the morning before we decide whether to persist with our plans to see the Amalfi Coast or to can them and move along. I certainly don’t fancy spending a wet day here, it’s not the most attractive place we have ever stayed and, if anything, the forecast for Friday is even less promising.
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