Paestum

This year for the February holidays, my parents and I went traveling to south Italy, more precisely to Salerno and we visited a place that took our breath way: Paestum. 40 km from Salerno ago has one of the most unique ancient sites of Italy but one of the least known. Paestum was a Greek colony, built at 3 km to the sea and her name was Poseidonia. It was founded in honor of the god of the sea. Then the Romans appropriated and gave the current name of Paestum. The site is protected by a powerful enclosure still visible but what leaves us without words is the wonderful Doric temples wonderfully preserved. We admired the Neptune temple built around 450 before J.C. beautifully preserved which is one of the highest manifestations of Greek art. Its proportions are related to the golden number and it was inspired by the temple of Zeus at Olympia. It exudes incredible strength, not only for its impressive dimensions (24 x 60 m.) but also for the power of its columns. The visual impact is stunning and the warm sunlight strengthens the beauty of the building. A few meters away we can see the temple of Athena also called Temple of Ceres, built around 500 B.C. It' s the smallest of the three temples. In this archaeological area you can walk through the ruins where roses bloom among the old stones . After seeing the beauty of the temples we took a look at the museum that preserves valuable discoveries. This trip to Paestum has been a real discovery of the Greek world for me that made me want to know a little better about it.... And I still remember the words of my parents during the visit "and they want to remove Latin and Greek !! What a damage and a waste!"

Thanks for reading, see you next time