paestum, italy
paestum is the site of the largest intact greek temples outside of greece. the most famous one, the top part of which is pictured below, is now known as the temple of apollo (though i still think of it as the temple of hera, which is what i was taught in my history of architecture I textbook).
we couldn't figure out what this was, and apparently, archaeologists aren't sure either
i found this little guy by accident
one of the streets in town
there are lots of tiny lizards all over the area - this one stood still just long enough for me to get a photo
the rocks used to build some of the structures were made of some very porous material - paestum has a beach nearby, so we surmised it might be coral, but that's only a guess
part of what remains of the city wall
it is so difficult to capture a true sense of just how large and impressive this temple is. in this photo, if you look hard you can see there's a person standing to the left near the back, looking up at it. when i was younger, you were allowed to actually climb the steps and walk around inside, but there's a wooden fence around the perimeter now. i might have to dig up some photos my dad took when we were kids - i know there's at least one where i'm sitting on the top step.
full view:
temple of athena
the other side of the temple of athena
i remember this old tourist shop being here even years back. it's mostly just the typical useless "stuff" but they also have some really nice ceramics typical of the area (i picked up a neat little blue&yellow painted sugar bowl)
we couldn't figure out what this was, and apparently, archaeologists aren't sure either
i found this little guy by accident
one of the streets in town
there are lots of tiny lizards all over the area - this one stood still just long enough for me to get a photo
the rocks used to build some of the structures were made of some very porous material - paestum has a beach nearby, so we surmised it might be coral, but that's only a guess
part of what remains of the city wall
it is so difficult to capture a true sense of just how large and impressive this temple is. in this photo, if you look hard you can see there's a person standing to the left near the back, looking up at it. when i was younger, you were allowed to actually climb the steps and walk around inside, but there's a wooden fence around the perimeter now. i might have to dig up some photos my dad took when we were kids - i know there's at least one where i'm sitting on the top step.
full view:
temple of athena
the other side of the temple of athena
i remember this old tourist shop being here even years back. it's mostly just the typical useless "stuff" but they also have some really nice ceramics typical of the area (i picked up a neat little blue&yellow painted sugar bowl)