In a very unusual turn of events, Jason and Nick arrived to breakfast before the fair ladies, Martina and Jane. In fact, they arrived a full 15 minutes before anyone else in the conference showed up. Maybe they got their times mixed up.
We saw many of our friends at breakfast and said “arrivederci” to those not accompanying us to the ruins at Paestum. Entering the parking lot of the hotel, we quickly had to make a choice: regular old single decker bus or exotic, life-altering double decker. Believe it or not, we chose the double decker and sat right in the front on the second deck. Paestum is an ancient city with Greek and Roman ruins dating back to 600 B.C. The city was built rock by rock from the local mountain. However, the mountain isn’t so local so the rocks were shipped down the nearby river to the city. The Tyrennian Sea used to be only 400 meters from the city limits, now it is over 800 meters away.
Three temples currently reside in Paestum. They were originally built by the ancient Greeks and then were occupied, updated and used by the Romans up on the expansion of their empire. The temples are still standing to this day for many reasons. One of them is that the Greeks used bronze (the original rebar) inside the marble columns as reinforcement. Historically, temples have always been situated East-to-West and Paestum is no different. For many centuries, Paestum was abandoned due to a high population of malaria-bearing mosquitoes.
The site was also chosen as a residence for soldiers because the view of the sea provided them notice of incoming brigades from Africa and around the world.
The Greeks erected a huge Parliament building to elect officials but the Romans deconstructed it and used the blocks for other buildings.
It wasn’t until the past three hundred years that Paestum was rediscovered by a German traveler who stumbled upon the site. Today, much of the site is privately owned by local home and property owners, so we were only able to see a fifth of the entire site.
We visited the museum and saw the most famous piece from the site at Paestum. It is the lid of an ancient sarcophagus with a metaphoric painting on it. All sarcophagi had some sort of painting that told a story. This particular one, titled The Diver, shows a man diving into a pool of water. It signified the cycle of life: he was passing from this life into the next.
After the Museum, we headed to lunch on the beach. After several different plates, Nick joined Gianluca and Ricardo while they were attempting to fly a kite on the sand. While Nick was successful in helping them put the kite together, he failed miserably at flying the kite. Gianluca, however, was an ace and Ricardo showed much promise.
Lunch ended, we headed back to the hotel, got our bags and left for Cava with Ciro (Jane and Martina) and Maolo (Jason and Nick). We arrived at our respective host families: Martina stayed with Ciro and Rita, Jason and Nick stayed with Carlo and Adriana, and Jane stayed with Pio and Maria. After some decompression, we all reconvened in downtown Cava.
In Cava, we met up with Ciro’s wife, Rita, and their daughters Elvira and Laura. One Sunday a month in Cava (and some other places in southern Italy) is Passegiata, which is a night with a carnival-type atmosphere. Shops are open, the streets are filled with people and there are other activities to entertain. This particular Sunday, we got quite a treat because there were several high school groups participating in a 600-year old competition in which bands play music while another member is juggling several flags – there were some very impressive routines.
Following this event, we continued to walk around town. Martina bought socks for her Yikes and Jane bought deodorant after hers spontaneously combusted earlier in the day. Our next stop was a 2,000 square foot Nativity scene in which everything was made by hand in painstaking detail. This site was associated with the nearby St. Francis of Assisi church.
A wonderful dinner soon followed at Ciro’s house. Rita had prepared a great meal for us – pasta, pork, bufala mozzarella with tomatoes, a potato/cheese/ham casserole, peas, a fruit tray and babas (rum cake muffins). Stuffed with Italian food yet again, it was time for bed and we all headed to our host families. Lucky for Martina, she was already with hers.
Thank you and good night.
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