We did a new version of our itinerary from October 26. New water buffalo, same Paestum.
Today we visited an organic water buffalo farm and it was different from the last. This was more like visiting a fancy winery in Tuscany. The females will produce milk for ten months after calving. They produce 8L per day, and the amazing part was that they decide when to be milked. When they feel heavy, they move next to a machine, it reads their chip, attaches the milker with an automatic arm, and then releases them into a feeding area after they’re done. You can just make out the animal in the middle photo above. The older females teach the younger ones what to do. The animals are played Mozart each morning because the farm believes that the happier they are, the better the milk.
We were served a buffalo milk inspired menu for lunch. We had manicotti with buffalo milk ricotta, a ball of mozzarella, a scoop of ricotta, lettuce and tomatoes from the farm, yogurt, and then buffalo milk gelato for dessert. No calcium deficit today, that’s for sure.
Then were were back at Paestum. This archaeological area started as a Greek settlement, then was taken by the Lucians, and finally became part of the Roman Empire. Eventually the Romans nearly abandoned it due to the marshy conditions, and probably, malaria. The King of Naples built a road through the amphitheater, and there are private villas on some of the ancient city. It was never unknown, but just far off the beaten path until people from other parts of Europe started the “grand tour,” in search of antiquities.
Greece was not always a safe way for 19th century tourists to experience the ancients, and Italy was safer. Paestum is not really close to Naples or Salerno, if you were traveling in the 18th century, but some people got there, and it began to be studied.
I’d recommend a visit to anyone. The temples are huge, and one, pictured above, is open for visitors to climb up into. In its glory days only a priest would have been allowed inside. The altars for offerings were outside, in front of the temple.
This temple has the current erroneous name of being dedicated to Poseidon, since this god is the one the town is named after. However, as excavations continued, archaeologist found statue after stature of Hera. So, so, so many Heras. Maybe even zero Posidons? It never occurred to the archaeologists that a magnificent temple would be dedicated to a female god, but it definitely appears to be the case. For some reason, the official signs have not renamed the temple after Hera, though!
Not to put too fine a point on it, (but ok, maybe I will), the museum has lots of these terracotta offerings on display and I photographed a few of them, above. They are beautiful. She is maternal and sweet. As you might notice, especially in the final photo, she looks very similar to a holy mother.
So it appears that when the residents of Paestum needed something, they asked a powerful female.
We saw a domus that we had visited before. It was a very large home, and one mosaic floor is still pretty easy to make out. These homes were organized like those in Pompeii or Herculaneum: central courtyard with a cistern, a lovely garden, small bedrooms, and a office area for receiving business guests or petitioners.
We visited the museum again and gazed on the diver once more. We had a little time to see some other artifacts, which was when I photographed the Heras. We also found this “cake” mold, which looks a whole lot like a pizzelle maker:
Mark and I took a wonderful sunset walk on the beach. It’s off season, and there were a few surfers (in really shallow waves,) but only a few other people walking around. It looks like a wonderful beach.
Two final images. There were doves at the cheese farm, and there were terra cotta figures of Hera and Zeus sitting (happliy?) on a throne together:
It is fun to imagine what the person who used the coupled gods as an offering might have been asking for.
