Dan has a work thing down in Sigonella on Sicily. So he decided to take some extra days and we did a road trip. Adventure begins!
Tantalum came along on our road trip.
She started out in the front seat, but Dan found her distracting.
I convinced Dan to stop in Vietri so I could look for beach glass.
They were very picturesquely spaced.
The sun came out a little bit right before we left and I got one more wave crash photo.
We left Vietri and drove down to Paestum to see the Greek ruins.
This is the Temple of Ceres, actually the Temple of Athena. It was built in the 500s BC.
When it was first rediscovered, in the early 1700s, they attributed a lot of the structures to the wrong deities.
In the 5th Century BC (400s BC) Poseidonia was taken over by the Lucanians.
The Lucanians were people from what is now the Italian region of Basilicata.
They renamed the town Paistos.
They renamed the town Paistos.
Ta found the remains of a well from a house.
Almost all of the residential areas are the West side of the park.
Almost all of the residential areas are the West side of the park.
This is a haroon for an unknown hero. A haroon is a building dedicated to a hero and contained their remains, real or idealized, or the remains of the city founder. I think originally it would have been covered by a mound of earth.
Columns! Because what are Greek/Roman ruins without columns?
In 237 BC the Romans took over Paestum because the Lucanians chose the wrong side in King Pyrrhus' war with Rome. The Romans renamed the town Paestum.
The Temple of Neptune is trying to hid behind those trees. It is not doing a very good job.
These low ruins are all residential ruins.
This is the amphitheater. Only the Western half is visible. In 1930 the amphitheater was divided in half by the construction of the SS 18, which ultimately buried the other half. Supposedly the civil engineer responsible for this was tried, convicted, and received a prison sentence for wanton destruction of a historical site.
The amphitheater would have been used for circus shows and gladiatorial displays.
The remaining tunnel would have been used for transporting animals and props for the shows.
Dan and I were both amused by the seemingly haphazard way the tunnel dome was constructed.
This is the pool or the Temple of Fortuna Virilis. It was built in the third century BC (200s) and measures 21 x 47 meters. It is believed it was used for fertility rites.
The Cilento Mountains are back there, though they are hiding in the clouds a bit.
And now, some artsy photos of columns!
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The Temple of Neptune or whomever was built in the mid-fifth century BC and is one of the most well preserved Doric buildings in Magna Graecia (Southern Italy that long ago was Greek). So I hope these columns are Doric, or I'm just going to be annoyed.
It's a cloud gate!
The internet assures me that these are, in fact, Doric columns. Crisis averted.
The Temple of Neptune or whomever it all its current glory.
I apparently didn't take many photos of the Basilica. It wasn't as interesting, to me, as the Temple of Neptune. The Basilica was built in 530 BC and is odd because it has an uneven number of columns. Because it is lacking pediments early scholars believed the structure was used for civic purposes.
Basilica is the Roman term for a civic building. It wasn't until the 300s that basilica started to also mean a Christian church. Architecturally a basilica is a rectangular walled structure with an open hall extending from end to end, usually flanked by side aisles set off by colonnades and with a raised platform at one or both ends.
We finished up our visit to Paestum by walking along the southern part of the wall.
The wall is trapezoidal in shape and is 4,750 meters long/around.
After Paestum, I had Dan take a detour so we could check out a new geocache.
There were some weird remnants of two balloon swans near where we parked.
At first glance I thought they were condoms. Thankfully they are not.
The geocache is in an old train tunnel. So we all walked out (luckily there was a path) and tried to not get too wet. It was a bit damp and the ground was flooded in areas.
The entrance to the tunnel.
And into the darkness. We had to go at least 100 meters (if not more) into the darkness, but successfully found the cache. It's the first time I've been the first finder of a new cache.
This is a drive-by scenery photo.
With the grey skies and it being Winter, it was getting dark out quickly.
Italy really likes its tunnels.
I was trying to take a picture of one of them and got wobbled, but though the light trails were fun.
My second attempt was a little better for what I was trying achieve. Italy loves tunnels.
We stayed in a hotel for the night and decided to try to get Sicily in the morning.
This concludes our adventures for today.
