PAESTUM

General information: 
Province: Salerno

Paestum is a book opened on the largeness and the universalità of the Greek culture.
But it is also the place of magical suggestions where a modulated light caress tans and frontons, pronai and porches. One history chip fixture in the infinite range
of the blueta of a sky and a sea without equal.

It is necessary to linger on in the twilight, when the shadows of the night begin to lengthen and everything from the temples to the individual stones begins to quiver. You are no longer certain whether Paestum is just a mirage or a trick of the night… and you can never get onough of that spectacle that varies light and shadows moment after moment, that illuminates and dims every corner of this skelecton city. And the wind strokes the colonnades just like the strings on a magic harp, slips imperiously through the plain , purifying this generous land. And the car headlights slide awaylike rapid meteors. Facing the sea there is thestone, for thousands of years honed by the wind,by the breeze of this sea that has given it a particular velvety consistency. And facing the stone there is the sun that lavishly endows all the shades of its itinerary, from blood red to the pale streaks of violet....

..Ah yes, these solemn and rough stones embody all the will-power and genius of man and represent the challenge to a dimension that must have been unique up until then in a country side dominated by the flatness of the sea and the horizon. These temples, that have survived in good state to our times-in this respect second only to Theseion in Athens- rise beyond the intact circle of the wall, the most conspicuous example of fortifications in Western Greek cities. In front of the Neptune temple there are still clumps of flowering roses that perpetuate the tradition of the bifera rosaria Paestum celebrated by Virgil and other Roman poets. These roses were also known to many foreign travellers who during their Grand Tour even went as far as Paestum , captivated by the fascination of the Greek- Roman civilization and the taste of romantic discoveries: I refer to the sketcher piranesi or the writer Goethe or the less well-known Seume who set off from Lipsia on foot and who went in search of the Paestum roses,"…Alas, in vain because they had all been torn off by the visitors…"....

..Yes, the Neptune temple, the largest, the greatest example of Doric architecture in the wole of the Western world, is the best conserved. On the local travertine, formed by calcareous deposits from the Salso river, time has spread a warm golden patina almost as if to protect it against its own damage and as if to enhance that feeling of strenght and elegance that emanates from the magnificent structure, from the perfect proportions, from the unprecedented technical solutions.

PAESTUM HOTEL LIST


DISTANCES FROM PAESTUM
- Rome kms 305;
- Naples kms 97;
- Salerno kms 42;
- Pompeii kms 70;
- Amalfi kms 66;
- Ravello kms 70;
- Positano kms 85;
- Sorrento kms 97;
- Vesuvio kms 86;
- Acciaroli kms 40;
- Palinuro kms 75;
- Padula kms 95;
- Pertosa caves kms 65;
- Castelcivita caves kms 34;
- Capri (1 hour and 50 min. from Salerno port)



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