Heading south, ruins everywhere

We leave Amalfi heading south. To be honest, the next few days are infill, just getting to Sicily where the fun would really start. But first we have some residual ruins to see.

In Pompeii we had bought this week card that got us into 5 major attractions, and we had one left and there was no way we were going to waste it. We are heading for Paestum.

Now Paestum is a very different archaeological site from those we have seen so far. Not covered in Lava, and not the centre of the Roman Empire. This is provincial, as provincial as Tunbridge Wells is to London, or Talavera is to Madrid. We are talking ruins in a field here.

And there are still a lot of ruins.

You actually start to wonder of their value, people clamber all over them, sit on the roof, walk their dogs. Ok this is just the amphitheatre, not that important, not like a temple.

The scale, probably over 600m by 300m and you are pretty much free to roam.

Lots of bits of columns defining the pathways.

But this is what tourists really come to see at Paestum, the temples.

Because here they are pretty much complete, and very splendid indeed. Especially when you look at it end on. This is how they are always drawn by the architects.

Designers don’t want you to see them like this, an oblique corner, much too untidy. Notice how the columns seem to bend in at the top, with a slight taper. They do the same at the bottom, this is to exaggerate perspective, make everything look taller.

Not sure it really works, but nice story.

This one was really strange, and I think the earliest. It had an odd number of columns and therefore a column in the middle.

He isn’t noticing the perspective nor the odd number of columns, beautiful colouration.

And I don’t think these are very structurally efficient. Stone could span much further. The columns could be much taller and more slender, there could also be a lot fewer of them, hence they tend to look quite squat and dumpy. Not elegant at all.

There is less left of the housing, maybe just a half a meter, the rest reused on some other building project over the millennia.

But with our knowledge learned from Ercolano and Pompeii we get to recognise the courtyards, entertaining spaces and bedrooms, which is useful as there is precious little in the way of explanation here.

Ah a bit of light relief, a modern building going up. A geodesic dome, now that is structurally efficient, about as efficient as you can get volume wise.

Not sure what it is for though

There are quite a few of these temples at Paestum. They were actually built by the Greeks, financed by the Germans, no doubt. With the money that the Greeks lent them after the WWII. SM

The columns have no bases, those came later. These seem to end really abruptly.

The sun is hot and blazing down on us, so it is time to seek some shelter and some air con. We head for the museum.

And can you believe it, this is how they think these temples might have been painted, all that harsh gaudy colour, all those ghastly patterns.

They look absolutely hideous, like something out of Disney. How it changes your perspective of Greek temples, well it changed mine.

But this was divine. This simple little painting appeared on the inside of a burial casket, they found loads round here for some reason. There was some spiritual metaphor that the diving related to; head long into the after world. It reminds me of the simplicity of early cave drawings, how little paint can portray a figure.

We headed on, ever southwards. That almond blossom in full swing, the landscapes as beautiful as always.

And the coastline stunning.

With deep blue seas.

But what is a shame about the Italian coastline, much of it is in private hands. There are very few public beaches and therefore access is restricted. There is no right to roam in Italy.

We come across a crazy bit of road. We cannot tell if it is closed or not. A small car comes the other way warning us we will not make it.

Huh, we will be the judge of that, we gingerly press on, navigating the first obstacle. Big fat Dora breathes in and fits with just 20mm to spare each side.

We never really did find out what had happened to this bit of road. Maybe it was seismic, maybe caused by land slippage or upheave of the ground. What we did find out was that we had some serious steep inclines which Dora wasn’t that happy about. She managed to drag her bulk up them OK though. Luckily those grooves aided with the grip.

Hmmn, pretty tight for a motorhome.

But not as tight as that. Susana gets out to help ease her through, this time with even less to spare. What you might call a narrow escape, it was a long way back!

Maybe she ain’t that fat after all.

We pass still more hill towns, they just don’t stop.

The clouds have gathered, but it is still warm

What glorious coastline, nearly as good as Cornwall!

As some pretty dramatic bits of cliff, might be some good climbing up there.

The road meanders, hugging the cliff edge, ducking in and out of tunnels.

We miss the new bit of road and the dramatically engineered bridge, instead we navigate round the valley, all the way down and back up again.

We are quite used to all those switchbacks by now.

We start to move away from the coast, following a turquois river up valley. We are heading back into the mountains to seek out some walking.

Eventually we reach our destination for the night, Monte Calabro.

Set within dramatic mountains, which hopefully tomorrow we will climb.

Part of the reason for coming here, they have a nice place for Dora, where we can fill up with water. We settle her in and go for a walk around the town

Guess what, it is a hilltop town.

We gravitate upwards, through the small streets.

One infill house after the other creates crazy spaces. Awkward, leftover spaces, difficult to manoeuvre, difficult to clean, but utterly charming.

Navigating the steps.

Maybe soon Monte Calabro will invest in some wacky escalator scheme.

Still snow capped, that is where we hope to be tomorrow.

Eventually we find the summit of the town. There on top, a castle. We enter, but are soon accosted by the custodian. She demands two euros and proceeds to show us around. I think she was on the verge of closing and really wants to go home.