Italy, pt. VII

The afternoon of Day 7 we drove from Paestum to Salerno.

It's pretty there.

The Salerno cathedral's dedicated to St. Matthew, whose tomb is inside the crypt.

My fiancée on the steps outside.  Che bella, right?

I had my first gelato & brioche there, a real ice-cream sandwich.  Che bello.

Salerno was a nice town.  I'd like to spend a little more time there at some point.

But we had to depart.  On our way back toward Massa Lubrense, we stopped in Vietri sul Mare, where the ladies did some shopping.

Padre Pio's everywhere in this part of Italy.

Sorrento was en route as well.  Fi agreed to pose with it.

As we passed, this church's bells were ringing.  Very atmospheric, wouldn't you say?

I love that place.

Italy, pt. VI

Day 7 we drove from Sorrento to Paestum to check out some Greco-Roman temples.

The place is extraordinary, like nothing I've ever seen before. 

The temples are enormous & very well preserved.

There are three on the site, all in the Doric style.

It's also home to a stretch of city ruins, but the temples are the real reason to go.

They're totally worth the trip.

Incredible.

Italy, pt. V

Day... 6?

So by then we'd been to Naples & Pompeii.  Next stop on the archaeological tour is Herculaneum, which, as luck would have it, is also accessible from the Circumvesuviana.  Convenient, almost as if they planned it that way.

Herculaneum is another ongoing excavation.  It was a Roman town like Pompeii, buried under 50 ft mud & ash by the same Vesuvian eruption.

Generally speaking, Herculaneum offers a similar experience to Pompeii, except on a smaller scale (Pompeii was huge).

Many of the architectural features are identical.

 

Including some very nice mosaics.

& frescoes.

Even a Roman bed.

While on the whole Herculaneum did seem bit better preserved than Pompeii, parts of it are still entirely exposed to the elements & unprotected from the wear & tear of tourists.

There's a delightful orchard toward the back.

It was pretty cool to see this sort of bidness going on.

A bath complex.

Pint of the black stuff, landlord?

The columns have layers.

Vesuvius in the distance.

On our way back to Massa Lubrense I took this picture.  Gorgeous, right?