Paestum

A couple of years ago I first heard of Paestum when two American clients, Ward and Warren, wanted to visit during their Amalfi Coast tour. Using local timetables I found that it was possible to make the 160 kilometre round trip and return by supper time.
Up 'til now I'd not done it myself but was impressed by what I read of Paestum's ruins and history I was keen to visit.Yesterday I set off on the journey south around the Gulf of Salerno. A bus from San Lazzaro to Amalfi then a change to a second bus from Amalfi, around the Capo d'Orso, to Salerno. From there I switched to a train and travelled on down the coast to Paestum.
Walking from the train station it's a kilometre down a local road, amongst other prospective tourists. I emerged from this road to see the ancient town of Paestum spread across the wide flat expanse of grass.

The temples of Hera and Apollo

A ticket costs 7 euros and grants access to the site and to the museum, where 5 euros buys a small book - all you need to know whilst on site. This was turning out to be a good day to visit; clear sunny skies but not too hot, fewer visitors than I would have expected and the southern Italian spring bursting around me. Wild flowers covered the meadows between the ruins which cover several square kilometres. As with Pompeii I had to remind myself of the scale, sophistication and complexity on the ancient classical world.

The temple of Athena

When the Greeks arrived here more than 2600 years ago the area's local inhabitants were the Enotri at the end of the Iron Age. It seems uncertain whether they were indigenous people or earlier migrants from what is now Greece. The new arrivals were here to stay and built a town Poseidonia after their Sea God, which only later was 'latinised' (can that really be a verb?) to Paistom.
There had been earlier settlements on that site but the greco-roman period for the next 1000 years is the one which is best represented on the site.  Most notable to an uneducated visitor like myself are the three huge temples, dedicated variously to Athena, Zeus and Hera (though it seems even these dedications are probabilities).
The site includes the forum, amphitheatre and large swimming pool, used in ritual. There are also extensive residential areas.

Swimming pool with a ramp at the far end to enter the water and a stone structure to support a wooden platform

 As with Pompeii, walking the paved wheel rutted streets brought home to me not only the age of the earliest remains but also the 1000 year duration - I wonder how many of our current buildings will be standing in the year 3000. Paestum was abandoned towards the end of the first millennium, it is thought, because of the arrival of malaria in the swamp-like terrain around.

A street between the forum and the residential district

I was interested to see how some buildings from early Poseidonia were overbuild in later developments by the Roman culture that superseded the Greek.
And, don't miss the museum, full of artefacts from the site, pottery and stone carvings and early fresco type paintings from the plasterwork. Most famous is the painting of a diver from a tomb which was excavated nearby.

(And I made it back in time for a pizza at da Gigino's in San Lazzaro.)