Pizza!

I had my last Greek meal at Paestum, sausage, stuffed grape leaves, olives, feta, the last of the Ouzo. I am ready for Italian food. More than ready. For lunch in Naples, we went to the Trianon, a favored pizza place. We're loving it.



Vicki had the sausage and mushroom, I had

the anchovy

Marquee

I have always believed that pizza crust is a basically non-

nutritive handle for eating pizza by the slice, as we

Americans tend to do; at Trianon, one eats it with a knife

and fork, thus leaving the crust intact; see illustration above

Pizza artist at work; seriously, as simple as it was, this was

the most interesting pizza I have yet had; the crust was thin,

yet chewy, the flavors simple but wonderful

A bit of the restaurant decor

Ditto

Real wood-fired oven...

A Bit Nippoli in Napoli

We drove up from the Bay of Salerno to the Bay of Naples and stopped at Pompeii, at Camping Spartacus, right across from the entrance to the archaeological site. This is significant because a) I am pretty sure this is exactly where we tent-camped in 1979 (we thought the freight train rushing by was an eruption of Vesuvius), and b) we are showing our solidarity with workers world-wide and especially Wisconsin. Geez, Wisconsin?!

Anyhow, next day, despite very cool temperatures (Nippoli; get it?), we ventured into Naples (Napoli) for a walking tour.

A view of Vesuvius from the train station

In the fish market near the central train station

I did not know there were this many different kinds of clams

Street scene; it's a very densely populated

place, with little green space

The Garibaldi monument; patron saint of motor scooters

Old fortress

Inside the Galleria Umberto I, a beautiful place, but filled only with tiny shops

Ditto

OK, it's 19th century or later, but very striking

And a cool site for wedding pix



Ditto; as I write, Will and Rachel are in Missoula, tasting cakes, visiting florists, etc.



The Teatro San Carlos, Italy's second most famous opera house

Another street scene

Paestum Museum

The Museum at Paestum is of interest, if for no other reason than for a collection actually on-site. It was surprisingly large, with a floor devoted to the Greek/Lucanian age, one to the Roman age, and one to the paleolithic and neolithic finds at the site.

Paestum Museum

Back-stabbing; among the metopes from the temples

A very helpful map of the Greek diaspora, c. 1000-500BCE;

where we have been recently

Greek era pottery

From Paestrum's necropolis: sarcophogus interiors were
decorated with frescoes, unlike pretty much any other place;
here is the most famous of them, The Diver

Over-view of The Diver (diving into the next life, as it were)

Another of the more colorful tomb frescoes

And expressive

Elsewhere, a terracotta still-life

Not sure what to make of this metope

Neolithic pottery from the site



And from the Roman, a togato (toga! toga!)

Paestum, 2011

Paestum is one of Italy's greatest archaeological sites, but not for anything Roman nor Italian. In the 6th century BC the Greeks established a colony here, Poseidonia, one of scores they established after the end of the Bronze Age, all over the Mediterannean and Black Seas. What is notable at Paestum are three 6th and 5th century Doric temples, largely intact, older and better preserved than anything you will see in Greece.

Temple of Apollo, 5th century BCE

Remains of theatre, much buried beneath a 19th century road

The Ekklesiasterion--a meeting place for citizens--established

by the Lucanians, indigenous folk who took over from the

Greeks

Temple of Athena, on an artificial mound, to be above the

others 

Baths



More of the civic area, looking north to the mountains

Main street

Us at the Temple of Apollo

Temple of Apollo

Temple of Hera...really old...550BC

A forest of ancient Doric columns

Sassi

Having gotten our bearings, sort of, we drove out of Bari (Patra's sister city, I think) and on into the interior, stopping at Matera for a) purchase of an Italian USB modem (yes!), and b) a stop at the Pantaleone Azienda Agritouristico campground. The former entailed biding our time parked on the main drag of Matera until 4:30PM when the Wind store reopened after its 4-hour lunch break. The latter is (we hope) a typical Italian farm expanded to include a restaurant, hostel, and campground. The campground was actually fairly nice and reasonable, although the English spoken was pretty minimal. The restaurant had no menu--"cuisine traditionale." We were joined later by a pair of French RVs and then another from Spain. We spent the evening recovering from our voyage, but the next day we ventured back into Matera.

Modern-day Matera sits along a great limestone gorge in which people have been living, in caves, for some aeons. In 1952, the Italian government declared them unsafe and moved everyone to Matera, atop the gorge. The cave dwellings--Sassi--are now a World Heritage Site, many restored and an attraction of some note. Mel Gibson's Passion of Christ was filmed here, but we went to see Sassi anyway.

En route from Bari to Matera, we saw a number of these

interesting stone corballed structures out in the groves

The gorge and some of the dwellings

Across the gorge, mostly cattle nowadays



River at the bottom of the gorge



Interior of Casa Grotto, one of the restored family dwellings;

three rooms, actually; it looked pretty spacious to us; in

reality, Sassi was noted for its poverty and 50% infant

mortality rate; the plight of its residents was made known by

physician/writer Carlos Levi

The kitchen

Living area; common bowl from which food is served

One-car garage

More of the cave town

In there somewhere is St. Peter's church/cave

The campground Pantaleone Azienda Agritouristico; very
nice



Sassi/Matera is worth a stop on the way. If you have seen Cappadocia, however, you won't be impressed.