29 February 2024 – Paestum

Miles driven today = 24

Total Miles to date = 1,791

As forecast, it absolutely tipped down with rain from the early hours of this morning and neither of us had a particularly good night’s sleep as a result.  So, whilst still rather bleary eyed, we had a decision to make regarding going to Amalfi for the day.  The case against was as follows:

i)  It was a 20 minute walk to the bus station.

ii) It was then 75 minutes each way on the bus to get to Amalfi and even more if we wanted to go further along the coast.

iii) Visibility was still poor and the possibility of more heavy showers persisted throughout the day.

iv)  If Sorrento was anything to go by, Amalfi will be all but closed for business anyway.

So in the end it was a fairly straightforward decision to pop the kettle back on, have a lazy start to the day and then move on.

We followed the SP175 south along the coast for 20 miles through a succession of litter strewn and fairly dilapidated looking seaside resorts.  Lisa commented that she couldn’t imagine them looking particularly attractive even in the summer and I couldn’t disagree.

We found our way to Paestum and, having squeezed the van into a small Italian car sized gap, we bought ourselves a pair of tickets and joined a throng of schoolkids at the gates.

Several Centuries before the Romans became the big noise around these parts it was the Greeks who were the dominant force having settled here during the 6^th Century BC.  They founded the town of Poseidonia, which was subsequently renamed Paestum by the Romans when they forced their way in here in 273AD.

The first building we looked around was the magnificent Temple of Athena at the Northern end of the site. 

The Temple was built circa 500BC on a small rocky hill which was extended to accommodate the building’s grandiose size.

The Temples and the original grid pattern of the streets laid out in the Greek town were retained by the Romans and recommissioned for their own purposes with new structures being built. 

This was a sanctuary with a pool.  The “pilasters” in the foreground formed the foundation of a wooden structure where rituals would be performed.

This is a reproduction of a marble press which was used in the creation of perfume.  The original was found in the same building.  Paestum was apparently renowned for its roses.

The Temple of Neptune is the largest and best preserved of the three Temples at Paestum.  It was completed circa 460BC and built on the foundations of an even older temple.

Nobody is entirely certain which God the Temple would have been dedicated to.  Neptune is an assumption based on the fact that the Greeks named the town after Poseidon, who was their equivalent deity.

The Temple of Hera is also known as the “Basilica”. 

It’s the oldest of the Temples which still exist today having taken 40 years to complete between 560BC and 520BC.  

The Forum would have been the central focus of the Roman town and was built on the foundations of another Greek temple.  Nowadays it’s a peaceful meadow filled with daisies.

The Amphitheatre would have held sporting events, gladiatorial bouts and executions.

This is the Ekklesiasterion, where the great and the good of the town would gather to debate.  “Ekklesia” in Greek simply meant “assembly”.  It was only subsequently that the derivation “Ecclesiastical” became more closely linked to religious gatherings.

We had a spot of lunch and then had a look around the impressively appointed museum space.  There were lots of exhibits of local finds going back through the ages as far as neolithic times and also grave goods from the local necropolis. 

This was a chamber tomb from the Spinazzo necropolis dated to the first half of the 3^rd Century BC.  It was actually stolen before being recovered in 1979.  It depicts the deceased being welcomed into the afterlife by one of his ancestors.  Each man is followed by a procession of people and horses along the side walls.

These are marble reliefs of young women which would have originally adorned the walls of one of the temples.

Greek urns and vases from the 3^rd and 4^th Centuries BC.  Whilst a lot of the crafts would have been carried on by the local people some of these pieces would have been imported from Athens.

Animal heads and decorative pieces which still have some of the original painted colours visible.

This reconstruction shows how vivid the colours would have been when they were freshly painted.

These terracotta relief slabs would have decorated the edges of the roof tiles on the temples of the 6^th Century BC.

We didn’t fancy driving too much further today so we moved on just a couple of miles to the modern town of Paestum, on the coast.  

We are at Camping Village dei Pini which is a €23 a night ACSI site although they do a deal of €13 a night over the winter months if you stay for a week or more and there are a number of, predominantly German, vans here who are obviously here for the middle to long term.

We had a walk all on our own along the sandy beach.

With relatively few campsites and aires/sostas guaranteed to be open at this time of year we’ve stuck a lot more rigidly to the outline plan I put in place for this trip than was the case for our previous sojourn round Spain and Portugal.  We started out with 4 or 5 days in the bank in case we wanted to put down the anchor anywhere for an extra night or two and we have added to that having scrubbed Siena and Amalfi from the itinerary.  So having found somewhere that we really like the feel of we are giving ourselves a day off tomorrow before we push on down into Calabria and on into Sicily.

1 March 2024 - Buffalo & Shorts