Italy 97 - Paestum with its Greek Temples solitude and peace after Naples.

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After the hustle and bustle of city life which is Naples we felt rather set free as we drove away and out of the grime. It took some while as we hit rush hour Naples and stood in traffic going nowhere. Suzy's destination for the day further south and the Greek Temples of Paestum. We have been before . Glenn will have seen them three times when we visit tonight and I have seen them twice . You can't have too much of a good thing. Why are we going again I hear you ask? Well I read somewhere that the temples are lit up at night and I wanted to see them in a different light.



So where is Suzy? For the first time we are on a hacienda agriculturismo. An olive farm which also specialised in raising Buffalo, producing mozzarella cheese and selling it together with other goodies at their farm shop. I tried some of their bread. It would have rude not to as we had only paid 8 euros to stay here. Ok no toilet nor shower but w e are sitting in an olive field with trees so knarled they look ancient. They look as if they were planted when the temples were built and resemble the hands fingers and bones of some ancient wise woman. We think we saw a Hoopoe in the grassy banks beside Suzy. Lizards crawl in the sun and the plants are purple . They look like pea flowers . They are not peas and I have no idea what they are but they are pretty and make a welcome change from the yellows we have become accustomed to.. I think we are getting used to this sort of site . When we started out we picked campsites with facilities but this trip we have moved to quiet out of the way locations. Sostas with or without facilities, farms who offer a pitch without any amenities . And we are enjoying ourselves better .

We walked to the ruins as the sky blackened. We have had three days now of rain . At times heavy. But today it was dreadful so cold not what we expected in Italy at this time of year The first temple you see is dedicated to Hera . It is the oldest surviving temple in Paestum. Eighteenth-century archaeologists named it "The Basilica" because they mistakenly believed it to be a Roman building. If you close your eyes, forget you are in Italy and open them again you could almost imagine you were in Greece . So perfect is this temple and there are more in Sicily. This just whets your appetite.

The Second temple of Hera built around 460–450 BC may have been dedicated to Poseidon . The temple is very different from the first you see as it is more symmetical in style. Wider columns and smaller spacings . It is thought it could have been a temple for other unknown gods or even Zeus. The stone of both are different. One much more mellow and richer in colour the second grey almost limestone in colour. There is an ampitheatre from the Roman period and also a small roman temple possibly dedicated to Jupiter, Juno and Minerva.

The last temple is to Athena and built circa 500BC. We love them all some columns make us smile as they look thick and chubby like the pot bellied legs of a small child. All overgrown and fat. Not like Roman columns all neatly ordered and thin in character. But what temples. The Greeks knew how to build them and the Romans I guess refined them. We did not go around them as they can be seen from the road where there are many photo opportunity spots. The rain came down and we headed for one of the only shelters the Museum. Last time we were here we chose just to pay for the temples. This time we thought we would pay for the museum and while away an hour or so until the rain stopped. However, the fee was now combined 10 euros each for both temples and museums. So instead we sheltered from the rain in the foyer and under the doorway until the rain stopped. Walking up the pedestrian street – well pedestrian apart from the hearse which was taking a recently deceased person to his or her final resting place – we dropped upon the café where we drank espressos and ate lemon cakes . We sat next to two women I thought they were Australians who were trying to go to Sorrento and the isle of Capri. They too were drinking English tea whilst waiting for the thunder and lightening to stop and the rain to stop bucketing down. It felt as if Poseiden the god of the sea was chucking the bathwater out and Zeus was angry with us for something.

Our plan for staying was to see the walls and the temples at night . Somewhere in the dim and distant past I had read that they were floodlight and looked spectacular . We waited for darkness to fall and walked from the campsite up the lonely lane to the main town where we could see the temples looking stunningly beautiful in their coat of bright floodlighting. Each looked different as the light played against the colour of the stone and the columns shed shadows around the temple floor. They looked different at night much more romantic and solitary without visitors to spoil them. A fantastic opportunity to see them at a different time and one that we will remember for a long time.

So what have the greeks done for us ? Well there are a lot more of them on Sicily waiting to be seen and Suzy fancies a trip across the water. Sounds like May 2016 sorted then.

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