Paestum: the Greek temples and a buffalo dairy

A private day at Paestum, where three Greek temples have been standing in a field south of Salerno for two and a half thousand years — and where, twenty minutes away, a dairy milks its buffalo to music.

It is the least crowded great archaeological site in Italy, and the one that surprises people most.

The visit

• The three temples — Poseidonia was founded by Greeks around 600 BCE, and what survives is Doric architecture older and better preserved than almost anything in Greece itself. The so-called Basilica is the oldest, the Temple of Hera the most complete, the Temple of Athena the one that shows the transition to a later style. They stand in open ground, unfenced from each other, and you walk between them
• The Tomb of the Diver, in the museum across the road — a painted slab from around 470 BCE showing a young man diving into water. It is one of the very few surviving examples of Greek figurative painting from that period anywhere in the world, and it is fifteen minutes from the temples
• The city itself — the forum, the amphitheatre, the Roman streets laid over the Greek grid, and the walls that still run for kilometres around the whole site
• The buffalo dairy at Capaccio — where the mozzarella actually comes from. The animals live loose rather than tied, with showers, brushes, automatic milking and music playing in the barn, which sounds like a joke until you see it. You watch the curd being stretched by hand and understand why the stuff sold as buffalo mozzarella elsewhere is not the same thing

Making the day work

Paestum is about ninety minutes south of Naples and needs a car — there is no sensible way to do it on public transport and be back the same evening.

• Count about six hours door to door: two to two and a half at the temples and museum, an hour at the dairy, and the driving
• It works from Naples, from the Amalfi Coast, or as a long day from Rome if you are already coming south
• Go in the morning. The temples face east and the light on the columns is best before midday, and the site has almost no shade in summer
• Kosher travellers, read this carefully. There is no kosher certification anywhere in this part of Italy — the dairy visit is something you watch, not something you eat. If you keep kosher, I arrange the food separately before we set out, through the synagogue in Naples, and we treat the dairy as the farm visit it is. I would rather say this in advance than have you find out at the door
• The day pairs naturally with Jewish Naples on either side of it, and with the Naples and Pompeii day if you have two days in Campania

Questions people ask

How old are the temples at Paestum?
The oldest dates from around 550 BCE and the newest from around 460 BCE, so they are older than the Parthenon in Athens and considerably better preserved. They were built by Greek colonists, not Romans.

Is Paestum worth the trip from Naples?
If you have three days or more in Campania, yes. It is about ninety minutes each way, and it is the only place in Italy where you can walk between three complete Greek temples in open country with almost nobody else there.

What is the Tomb of the Diver?
A painted tomb slab from around 470 BCE, found near Paestum in 1968 and now in the site museum. Greek painting of that age almost never survives, which is why a single slab is famous.

Can you visit a buffalo mozzarella farm near Paestum?
Yes, at Capaccio, about twenty minutes from the temples. You see the herd, the milking and the curd being worked by hand.

Is the mozzarella kosher?
No. There is no kosher certification in this part of Italy at all. The dairy is a visit, not a meal — kosher food for the day is arranged in advance through the synagogue in Naples.