Paestum - Doric Temples of the Magna Grecia: The main reason to come to Paestum is to see the most complete Doric temples in Italy. The zone of the Magna Grecia, greater Greece, starts here, and Paestum started out as a Greek settlement. Paestum is the Roman name of the city--the original Greek name was Poseidonia.
Location of Paestum: Paestum is in the Italian region of Campania, just south of the Amalfi coast. Paestum is in the middle of a pretty dense tourism zone--Pompeii, Herculenium, the Amalfi coast, and Naples are all nearby. Campania also has some of the best food in Italy.
Paestum - Getting There: By bus - Paestum is accessible from Naples, but more frequent service is available from Salerno on the
napoli-salerno-paestum-agropoli-vallo della lucania line.
By Train - Paestum is accessible from Naples by train. The site is a 15 minute walk from the train station. For info see
Day Tripping to Paestum, an excellent resource from Ed and Julie.
The Magna Grecia: Greece started to expand in the 8th century B.C. into southern Italy and Sicily, where they founded colonies among the small, agrarian settlements that were not organized well enough to be able to defend themselves from the arrival of Greeks--in this case Achaeans coming from Sybaris. Around 600 B.C. the Greeks settled in "Poseidonia," named in honor of the god of the Sea.
What Went Wrong?: After the Romans conquered the south they founded a Latin colony called Paestum here. But, as in many of the coastal areas, population declined seriously in the Late Empire--some fleeing to the hills to avoid malaria, others falling in Saracen raids. Paestum was lost to the world by the 12th century, discovered by road crews in 1752 and "re-discovered" in the 18th centuries when poets like Goethe, Shelley, Canova, and Piranesi visited and wrote about the ruins while on the "Grand Tour."
Visiting the Paestum Excavations: Paestum has three of the best preserved doric temples in Italy: the Basilica of Hera, the Temple of Ceres, and, on the southern end of the site, the Temple of Neptune, built in 450 BC, the oldest and best preserved of the Greek temples in Italy.
The ruins are open from 9am to 1 hour before sunset every day (last admission is 2 hours before sunset).
There is a museum on the site. Opening hours are 9am-7pm. The cost of the museum at time of writing was 4.10 Euros, 6 Euros including the site visit. The Museum is closed the first and third Monday of each month.
The site's closing doesn't seem to stop couples wanting to make a baby, according to Sacred Sites:
"Childless couples flock to the temple of Hera to copulate beneath the night sky, in the belief that making love within the shrine of the goddess will call forth her fertilizing influence and thereby insure pregnancy. At Paestum, Hera is not only a goddess of fertility; she is also a goddess of childbirth."
Pictures of Paestum: 5 pictures of the temples are found in our Paestum Slide Show.
Map and Travel Resources for Campania: For a map of the area around Paestum and nearby attractions, see our Campania Map and Travel Resources. Campania has a lot to do in a small area, from the dramatic Amalfi coastline, to other ancient sites, castles and palaces.
