Paestum is somewhere I’ve always wanted to see since I studied the temples as a kid at school for A level classics, but it seemed a faff to get there by ourselves so we decided to book onto the coach trip which is about 40 euro per person, and takes in a stop at Salerno on the way there and a quick stop to “try a little of the buffalo ice cream” at a farm on the way back (for this read the obligatory stop at somewhere to spend more money of wine, ice cream and other stuff). Quite why anyone would want to buy any thing to eat, let alone ice cream, when the chairs and tables are on a little patio outside the shop right next to the buffalo shed and the whole place had a definite “Farmyard Dung” aroma to it that certainly put us off.
Anyway the main part of the day starts with a stop at Salerno where the guide walks you through a tour of the cathedral which I must admit was quite impressive as I went in with a “Yawn, here we go, yet another church!” feeling, and then you get just ½ an hour free time before you need to meet back at the bus, which as the cathedral is already about a 10 minute walk away is about enough time for a quick look in a few shops on the walk back but not much else. It felt more like the free time here was just a bit of padding to put a tick in the box so they could say you get free time there in the brochure.
On to Paestum where you first look at the site with the guide giving you all the information as you go round and then you have time for lunch (about an hour) where you can either join the guide at a “recommended” restaurant in which you get a 13 euro per person deal on a two course lunch, or you can do what we did and wander off somewhere much quieter and have a big pizza and a beer for less.
After lunch there is about 30 to 45 minutes of a guided tour round the archaeological museum, before about 20 minutes to poke about the few souvenir shops and back to the bus to go home via the afore mentioned stop at the buffalo farm.
Now I’m glad I did this tour as previously mentioned I very much wanted to see Paestum, but unless you are in the same position I don’t think I can recommend the particular one we went on as the guide was firstly, very dull and secondly, difficult to understand. Obviously his English was infinitely better than my Italian, but he spoke to fast and with such an accent that I could just about follow the gist of his commentary if I concentrated really hard. Add the lack of any humour or enthusiasm, and I very quickly switched off and stopped listening to him. All the commentary is done via radios with an ear phone so you don’t have to be crushed up in a tight group to hear him. This is a good idea especially in the cathedral when quiet voices are needed, but it adds even more to an impersonal nature of the guide. By the time we got to filling out the questionnaire at the end to give feedback, I could not remember the guides name or even if he had introduced himself in the first place. So basically, for me (and a few others I spoke to on the coach) the guide was fairly worthless and effectively the trip was just an expensive bus that at least took you where you wanted to go.
The other painful part of the day was getting into the Paestum site itself, as although I understand they entrance fee is never included in the tour cost (as there are different entrance rates depending on things like age) they could at least have gathered the money on they coach along the way there and had the guide go and pay for entry for everyone in one go. Instead everyone queued up and bought their tickets individually, which took about 20 minutes or ½ an hour by the time some had dithered buying guide books at the same time.
Entry cost to Paestum Salerno
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