The spine of Italy is very mountainous. Consequently, travelling on a north south axis is much more straightforward than east/west. Going cross-country is slow and as I mentioned in the previous post, hampered by the state of the roads. The journey from Matera to Paestum, situated on the west coast just south of Salerno, took us through some spectacular mountain scenery.
Sadly we saw very little of it as the weather was atrocious, monsoon like thundery showers making the pot-holed roads' many lane closures and scary contraflows very hazardous indeed. The effect was to make us very grumpy by the time we arrived at Camping Villagio dei Pini. We stayed here once before in March 2015 on our way back from Sicily. For some reason I never mentioned the place in the blog posts at the time, the only thing I could recall was the site had direct beach access as we have a photo somewhere of a sunset with a distant view of the Amalfi coast.
The weather today was gloomy, the umbrella pines there to providing shade from the sun, in dull weather made the pitches even gloomier. There must have been torrential rain here earlier as our pitch was very soft and squelchy.
The place was busy, the only available pitches were ones that were tricky to reverse into. Now I was a bit grumpy as well as gloomy.
We stayed put most of the next day, we had a pile of laundry and after the wet weather the van was very gritty, there were jobs to do. It appeared that at least 80% of our fellow campers were German, they had hearty social scene going on, we suspected the place had a 'here for the duration' following, guaranteed to make those of us just passing through feel excluded.
Gill recalled how some years ago she had a conversation with a woman who railed about feeling trapped on a site with loads of Germans. This in itself is hardly unusual, but in this instance the woman was from the Bundersrepublic herself! I can understand where she was coming from, there was a site near Calpe we happened upon once which appeared to be occupied entirely by extras from Towie. One very good reason to travel for months on end is to escape your fellow countrymen, being a foreigner can feel liberating. However, for reasons that are somewhat incomprehensible this only works when you are surrounded by by a mixture of people. If any one nationality predominates the effect is stultifying.
In reviews people were very positive about the site's pizzeria. Though we had been in Italy for a fortnight we had not had a pizza. Paestum is only 75kms south of Naples, the home of pizza, we had high hopes.
Sadly we could not recall ever having quite as bad pizzas, the cook had managed the apparently impossible trick of burning one side of the crust while the dough on the bottom remained undercooked. The topping was a tad raw and the ingredients somewhat eccentric. Gill fancied a pizza Napoli, though it wasn't listed on the menu. There followed a bizarre conversation with the waitress who claimed that a 'Napoli' did not contain mozzarella, and they had no anchovies in stock. How can you run a pizzeria in Campania and be so clueless?
On day two the sun came out and lifted our spirits. We began to feel more positive about where we were staying. Strangely enough the mini-market around the corner from the site paid a significant role in our change of heart.
It was a tiny shop, but had Tardis-like qualities seemingly stock anything and everything within two long corridors with shelves stacked to the ceiling.
Over the time we stayed here we managed to find pasta shapes unique to the area, fresh vegetables grown locally, DOP bufola mozzarella, and a spare filter for our moka pot.
When Gill asked the shopkeeper if she had any fresh basil, after a moment's hesitation she reached below the counter and took some freshly cut leaves from a plastic bag, wrapped them carefully in cling film and gave them to us as a present.
'Why do we need hypermarkets?' we asked. The mini-market had a Schumachian quality, small but in its own ramshackle way beautiful, with zero km. fresh produce and someone running the place who was friendly, kind and accommodating. Most of the time we inhabit a world of remote systems and machine learning (just think of the scale of the technology that enables you to read this blog), so when we encountering something on a human scale, that's quirky and individualistic it is touching. Maybe it's silly to find a perfectly ordinary mini-market in Campania inexplicably uplifting, but I did.
Things perked up from here and we enjoyed the rest of our stay in Paestum. We have been here three times before. The first two visits were day trips as a family. In 2005 or thereabouts we rented a house at Easter in the hills above the Amalfi coast, then five years later when we did something similar, but stayed this time in the Cilento south of Paestum. Our last visit was fleeting in March 2016 in Maisy, our first moho.
What brings people here is the archaeological site. Paestum's three big temples are the best preserved examples of early Doric outside of Greece.
As well as the temples archaeologists have uncovered about half of the ancient city of Paestum. It was occupied continuously for 1200 years from the late sixth century BCE to the early Mediaeval period. With children and teenagers in tow we never really had enough time to explore the site beyond the iconic temples before adolescent ennui set in. These days we can do as we please, so we spent the entire afternoon mooching about the ruins.
The walls constructed by the Greek colonists are still clear to be seen, their perimeter is over 4kms in length. There is some debate as to when they were constructed as ancient sources are ambiguous about when the present site was occupied, suggesting the original settlement, an offshoot of Sybaris on the Ionian coast, may have been closer to modern day Agropoli, a few kilometres to the south of here. What is certain is by the time the temples were completed in the late fourth century Paestum must have been developing within the fortifications we can see today.
The three temples are very beautiful. The most complete examples of the early classical Doric. They are usually described as being dedicated to Poseiden...
Hera...
Athena..
In truth these designations are speculative, no-one knows for sure.
The central part of the city and one of its outer quarters has been uncovered, the rest is empty fields and some modern buildings lining the road built through the site in the eighteenth century.
Nevertheless the remains are impressive giving you the sense of how the place functioned, you sense the vibrancy of its civic life. Centred around the central forum is a produce market, a semi-circular public hall where the citizens gathered to discuss issues, a baths and gymnasium complex, a theatre and area with shops and small temples. It felt modern.
The secular buildings mostly date from the Imperial Roman period and late antiquity. However beyond the centre some poorer quarters have been excavated, with older buildings whose layouts and simple geometric mosaic floors suggest they are remains from an earlier time when the Paestum was a Greek colony.
The information boards dotted around the site were informative but lacked a 'you are here' symbol which made it tricky to square the plans and reconstructions of what the area might have looked like with the remains in front of you.
The information also seemed a tad biased. The 200 years that Paestum spent as a Greek settlement was glossed over. Much was made of the fact that in the third century BCE the Lucanians, a local Italic tribe, became the city's political elite. In 272 BCE they in turn were ousted by the Roman Republic. There is no evidence that suggests either regime change was violent, indeed the archeology points to a multicultural society and peaceful coexistence. However, the gist of the signage had a slightly different slant almost presenting the events in antiquity as implicitly parallel to the modern unification of Italy.
The Paestum site is big and by the end of the afternoon we were footsore. Time to head back. The light was beautiful and to add to the peaceful atmosphere a hot air balloon floated above the ancient temples.
It's a thing apparently, for tourists with more money than sense. It may explain why we did not overhear one inane observation in American, Italy's monuments are usually filled with them; maybe today the missing transatlantic contingent were all packed like sardines into the balloon's basket.
There is a small museum here, well more accurately there is a very large museum with only a small annexe open to the public. It was while perusing the fridge magnets in the trashy gift shops next to it that I realised the celebrated 'diver' tomb painting was discovered near the Paestum and was on display in the museum annexe. I had always assumed the picture was an Etruscan piece, so was surprised to discover it was Graeco-Lucanian.
Happily the tickets to the Paestum 'scavi' were valid for two days so we ditched tomorrow's planned cycle trip to Agropoli decided to pedal back to Paestum and go to the museum instead.
As museums go it wasn't particularly well curated, however the artefacts themselves were stunning. They feature the frescoes and grave goods discovered in underground tombs excavated about half a century ago. They date from the late fifth century to the early third century BCE. Whereas the artefacts you find in the excellent archeological museums you find all over Greece attest to the uniqueness of Hellenic culture, the items here tell a different story, revealing the interaction between Greek colonists and the indigenous cultures of Magna Graecia.
The most celebrated paintings were discovered within the 'tomb of the diver', dated by pottery found within the subterranean structure to around 470 BCE. There has been much debate about the tomb's provenance.
As well as the striking image of the diving youth on the tomb's ceiling, its walls depict a symposium, a feast with wine, discussion, music and poetry. This is a quintessentially Greek image. After the image of the diver, judging by the fridge magnets on sale on the stalls by the ticket booth, the picture of a youth with an older man are the most popular, presumably because of its overt homoeroticism.
Though the style and content is indisputably Greek, the central image of the diving youth has not been found elsewhere. It may well be the product of cultural exchange, a unique expression of a hybrid Graeco-Lucanian belief system.
The later tombs are stylistically different. At first sight they look more primitive, not so graceful, more sketchy, resembling carictatures more than expressions of idealised beauty. These date from the period of Lucanian dominance, and their lively style may well reflect a difference in funerary practice, it is thought that the decoration of the tomb formed a part of the burial ritual, so the images were produced quickly, in the moment.
They may be more folksy but they are not unsophisticated, capturing individual characterstics and personality entirely beyond the more hieratic Greek images.
For all their naturalism, the shadow of Egyptian antecedents can be seen in all Greek art prior to Hellenistic period.
The later Paestum frescoes ß are unique hybrids, featuring Greek iconography but rendered in a looser more painterly Lucanian style, like this satyr-like old man.
Objects as well as images were discovered in the tombs, including high quality pottery. These lay unseen and untouched for 2300 years and are pristine.
Most of ceramic grave goods are high value imported urns and plates from Attica. A few are thought to be the product of local craftsman, the decoration is equally refined as those imported from Athens, but the ceramics themselves are a little 'chunkier' and more rustic.
The items in Paestum museum are fascinating because they tell a more nuanced and complicated story than standard history which presents itself as a series of events where the winner takes all - first the Greeks, then the Carthaginians followed by the Romans. The reality of the past is more complicated and messier, each place having a unique story. The artefacts here are as much an expression of multiculturalism as spag bol, a curry or a Hawaiian pizza.
Tomorrow we start our trek north in earnest. Next stop, Antica Ostia - more archeology! Though the site is next to the mouth of the Tiber, it's unlikely we will get a glimpse of the sea. So, it is a goodbye Med. moment, see you after Christmas!
We walked down to the beach at sunset and joined a gaggle of other sentimental northerners to watch the sun slowly sink below the horizon.
As Auden wrote in his valedictory note to the Mezzogiorno -
Go I must, but I go grateful (evenTo a certain Monte) and invokingMy sacred meridian names, Vico, Verga,Pirandello, Bernini, Bellini,To bless this region, its vendages, and thoseWho call it home: though one cannot alwaysRemember exactly why one has been happy,There is no forgetting that one was.
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