I Dintorni

The majestic Doric temples, illuminated by an intense sun, and the long coastal strip, lapped by a sparkling sea, make Paestum an enchanting place to spend your holidays. The ancient city is strategically located a few kilometers south of the Amalfi coast and north of the Cilento coast, acting as the gateway to the Cilento National Park. Considered by the U.N.E.S.C.O. heritage of humanity, Paestum remains, for art, nature, flavors and events that characterize it, among the most beautiful cities of Magna Graecia to visit and discover.

The municipality is 43 km from Salerno and can be reached by taking the A3 motorway, exit at the Battipaglia tollgate, the national S.S. 18 (up to Capaccio Scalo), the S.S. 166 of the Alburni (crossroads of Petrale) and, finally, the S.P. 13. The nearest railway station is in Paestum, on the Rome-Reggio Calabria line. Its particular geographical position allows it to dominate the plain of the temples of Paestum, offering an excellent panoramic view of the entire Gulf of Salerno (also formerly called Posidoniate or Sinus Paestanus). The Province of Salerno is rich in countries that preserve interesting natural and cultural resources.

Its territory touches the most beautiful stretches of the Tyrrhenian coast, but also the countries far from the coast will not fail to give visitors a splendid view. The sea, the green and the fascinating traditions make these places the ideal destinations for interesting excursions. The reference is not only due to the legend and the history, to the archaeological areas, attracting scholars among the most famous to the problems of its remains, but to the exceptional multiplicity of its scenarios colored by a typically Mediterranean vegetation.

It might seem, at first glance, an exaggeration, but the natural and historical – archaeological stage of Paestum, where myth and legend coexist in an inseparable union, is not so different from the paradise of imagination that dwells in the imagination of those who live on this extraordinary gift of nature, In its forms has the expressive power of a true work of art, whose material entity is able to transmit, to those who come to visit it, explore and comment on it, living emotions, in which the opposites, instead of colliding , attract each other, in which the relative surpasses the absolute.

The entire archaeological area is to be visited starting from the Sanctuary of Hera to the mouth of the Sele, built in the 6th century BC, one of the most famous of Magna Graecia, located on a wide alluvial plain of sand, silt and land at 1,500 meters from the mouth of the river and 9 kilometers from Paestum, from the Basilica, the largest and the oldest of the three temples dating back to 550 BC built according to the archaic Doric style, the Temple of Ceres or Athens, rises at the highest point of the city, at the extreme northern limit of the southern part of Paestum divided by the Basilica and the Temple of Neptune, the Cinta Muraria di Paestum develops, along its entire length, which approximates the five kilometers (4750 meters), with an average thickness of five meters and a maximum of seven, assuming the geometric shape of a pentagon or trapezoid rectangle with the tip of the minor side facing the coast , the amphitheater, typically Roman building, which was set up as a building for the gladiator fights, the Forum, surrounded by Doric arcades, one of the oldest rectangular Roman Forums, can be reached along Via Sacra (long 12 km, from the Greek period connected the city of Poseidonia to the oldest temple of Hera), which covers the sacred area of ​​the Goddess Athena, the Tomba del Tuffatore, represents a tomb quite exceptional considering that the decorations are all conceived according to the deceased due essentially to the approach of the Lucanians to the Greeks in the city government towards the IV century BC, which in addition to changing the political structures of the territory, also brought changes in aesthetic tastes , the Forum that interests the sacred area of ​​the Goddess Athena not to be missed Madonna Del Granato built around the twelfth century is still a destination for many pilgrims coming not only from the Cilento, but also from many capitals of Campania both for devotion and for its superb position on the gulf of Salerno, from which you can admire a divine panorama, the Church of S. Pietro Apostolo, once called Church of the Confraternity of the Rosary, dates back to 1550, an era in which the local history does not record events of particular importance .

Winckelmann, who arrived in Paestum in 1758, in front of the marvels he “discovered” could not help but feel a deep astonishment at what for too long had been buried by a blanket of oblivion.
So his thought took shape: “… Is not it an amazing fact that no one has written about this before?”
(Winckelmann)

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