Barley known Paestum.

Besides being a regular town, Paestum holds a secret. It actually has one of the world’s best preserved Greek ruins.

I heard about it through one of my bosses, and also apparently there are more in Sicily. I’m so glad I went.

I might be really bold in saying this, but I might have liked it better than Pompeii, which, if you read that post you might understand why I was a little disappointed in Pompeii.

You need to get tickets at the Archaeological museum across the street and then you can enter the actual ruins part.

I saw it was supposed to rain and wore boots and brought my umbrella, but to my luck it was sunny! Which was so great because walking around in the rain wouldn’t have been fun.

1 out of 3 temples

The most impressive parts of the ruins are the temples. In Pompeii, the houses are more intact with murals and mosaic floors, but then again, it’s newer than Paestum. There are some traces of murals and mosaics, but I think the big draw are the temples. They let you walk inside them which to me was totally cool.

2 out of the 3 temples

I spent 3 hours there in total, including the museum. The museum is alright. It gives some information on prehistoric times with the first homo sapiens and eventually the arrival of Greeks.

The biggest draw was the Tomb of the Diver. So named because it was a tomb they found with a mural of a man diving into water. They say this is a metaphor for accepting death. However, the mural is surrounded by murals of party scenes, which could support this theory or possibly another theory.

Though I got into it for free due to my Artecard, please see other posts, I paid a euro extra for a temporary exhibit. It was cool as it showed more painted tombs and gave more information on tombs and burials.

After, I walked to the town to a buffalo mozzarella farm. The hostel told me this town is home to Mozzarella of Buffalo and indeed on their sign it says so. I got 2 small Mozzarella balls and ate one on the train back.

It was delicious, but I don’t know much about cheese and mozzarella to know the actual difference.
The walk from the train to the ruins is about 10 minutes and from the ruins to the town (or at least this farm) is about 20 minutes.

The 2 temples lit up

Paestum is also cool in that the Greeks first settled, but then the Romans took over so there are different layers of buildings as well as history.

Definitely worth a trip!!

If you would like to see some other ruins in the Napoles’ area, be sure to check out my posts!

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