Last night we ate at the modest campsite restaurant. For the third time this trip I was raving about the quality of the pizza: better than is available at any of the dozens of Italian chain restaurants in Britain. Super simple: tomato, buffalo mozzarella and basil. Brilliant.
This morning we walked the mile or so to Paestum, a site which far exceeded our expectations. We knew from our guidebook that Paestum was a UNESCO World Heritage Site and contained some Greek temples and other Greek and Roman remains, but the scale of the site caught us by surprise.
The scale of Paestum. This shows about 50% with the Temple of Athena in the distance
The Greeks established a colony at Paestum, which they called Poseidonia in honour of the god Poseidon, in the 6th Century BC. From this period there are still three more or less complete temples. A temple to Hera, one to Poseidon and a third to Athena. But there is also a site of many acres of ordinary Greek and Roman buildings, much of it only partly excavated but vast in scale.
Temple of Poseidon
Temple of Poseidon
The Romans took over the site in the 3rd century BC, rededicating the temples to their own equivalents of the Greek gods. For instance the temple to Poseidon, who was a Greek god of the sea, was renamed the temple to Neptune, the Roman sea god,
Temple of Hera with Temple of Poseidon behind
In addition to these magnificent temples, some of the best preserved in the world, there is also a small Roman amphitheatre, Roman forum and other Roman buildings. It is also the vast size of the town which impresses, completely enclosed with walls 2,500 years old.
We spent an enjoyable couple of hours wandering around, Mable thoroughly entertained by more lizards than I have ever seen before an equivalent area.
Our meanderings were accompanied by the sound of organised racing going on adjacent to the site. They appeared to be running triathalons, duathalons and running races for various junior age groups. Some coaches and athletes in official looking Italy kit, seemed to indicate that there were some very talented youngsters present.
When we finally emerged from the archeological site for some lunch we also ran into an Italian wedding taking place at the local church. The celebrations looked very similar to that of a British couple, but the Bride and Groom’s Maserati car, was a little more stylish than us Brits can normally manage!
Italian Bride and Groom
Italian Bride and Groom leave in style!
We had a couple of paninis for lunch followed by a magnificent chocolate gelato. How the Italians can make such consistently brilliant ice cream is a mystery to me, but an enjoyable one!
I visited the Paestum museum, while Sarah relaxed with the dogs. The museum is full of the finds from excavating the Paestum site. Clear evidence of pre Greek settlements going back to flint tools and a mysterious civilisation which preceded the Greeks on the site and who manufactured beautiful but undecorated pots. This earlier civilisation was discovered by accident when the site was used by the US army as a base during the Salerno landings. Amusingly, to my mind, their accidental discovery was then properly researched and excavated by the archeology group of the British Royal Engineers! Nice to see that at the height of a World War the British Army still had room for an archeology unit.
Most impressive in the museum were the interiors of various Greek tombs, which, sealed for millenia, contain beautiful paintings which are now 2,500 years old. The most famous is of a diver which it is speculated is a metaphor for the passage from life to death.
Diver on interior of Greek Tomb. A metaphor for the passage from life to death?
We walked back towards our campsite via the race start line. The races were still continuing and we stayed to watch the start of one.
Start of Junior Race
Further on our walk we noticed a property advertising buffalo mozzarella and caught the distinctive smell of cow manure, or could it be buffalo. We had a look in the nearby fields but could see neither. We may now have tasted the buffalo mozzarella and smelt the buffalo shit, but still not seen the buffaloes. The search will continue!