Starting to turn towards home!!

Pictures of Paestum -- including our guide dog!!

Friday, December 05, 2008

Ciao!

Well, we’ve now turned the car around and are starting to head back toward Rome. Got up this morning in our warm little cave in Matera, had breakfast, packed up and out we went. Lovely day in Matera; blue skies, sunny and breezy – not really cold exactly, but rather crisp. Headed west toward Potenza, as this was to be our big driving day; all the way to the west coast of Italy, to Paestum (south of Salerno).

Actually, with great roads and fairly good weather (a few splotches of rain, but not bad at all!) we made it to Paestum in 2 ½ hours! Then to find our hotel…well…talk about hotel signs! There must be dozens of hotels in this area – apparently a VERY popular place! We were looking for the Best Western Esplanade. Found some of the right signs, turned a corner, and oh my! The Savoy Beach Hotel – just a beautiful place, right next to our little BW…oh well! R went into the BW to get our room, and came out a minute later saying: They don’t have a room for us (very long pause…) We’ve been upgraded to the Savoy Beach Hotel next door!!!! Seemed very unreal, to be honest, but we headed next door! The Savoy is a HUGE lovely hotel; lots of glass, really lovely rooms! Turns out that both properties – the BW and this one are owned by the same folks; and occasionally they upgrade people from one property to the other!! Wow!! So, for something like 75 Euros a night, we have a lovely 4 star hotel with a balcony from which we can see one of the Paestum temples! And a TERRIFIC bathtub! (Also fairly good TV, I think…)

We dropped everything in the room, and then headed over to the ruins (scavi) at Paestum; only a kilometer or so away. Took us a bit to find the right entrance – only one seems to be open in the off-season, but finally found the right place. So nice to have the place to ourselves – although to be honest, we did see two other visitors while we were walking. Took lots of pictures; toured the site – in company with a very friendly dog, who adopted us when we came in! I figured he was one of the tour guides…just making sure that we didn’t do anything we weren’t supposed to!

The last time we were here – probably 10 years ago or so! – the major temples had lots of scaffolding around them, as they were in the process of being restored. (It is a UNESCO World Heritage site.) SO nice to see them “au natural” as it were! They date from the 5th and 6th centuries, B.C. and are some of the best preserve Greek temples. After our walk through the grounds, we headed across the street to the wonderful Paestum museum; truly a gem! Not only do they have some explanations in English (which is always helpful!) their collection is superb! We would highly recommend this site to anybody who likes Greek/Roman ruins! Only one slight problem…

This adventure started over a year and a half ago, when we went with Arthur and Anne Vaughan to the Getty Malibu museum – and found the book “The Appian Way.” Look where it has taken us!! So what do we find today?? The Atlas of the Roman World …oh my, I can see what we may have to look forward to! Did you know that the Romans made it as far as Romania?? And Bulgaria? Sheesh!! Where do we begin!

Back to the hotel at this point (grabbing a wonderful cioccoloto gelato on the way) for a rest. Had a drink in the lovely bar – prosecco for me and a small goldfish bowl of red wine for R – along with a plate of dolce (cookies) as well as figs – regular and chocolate-covered! Yum!! Then upstairs, where we are trying very hard to get this room warmed up! WHY are caves SO easy to heat?! Oh well!!

Still not sure what we’re doing for dinner tonight. This hotel has a very elegant restaurant, but we’re not entirely convinced that we’re in the “elegant” mood tonight! So, more later!!

Much love,
m