Paestum, Atrani, & Amalfi



Tomb of the Diver Fresco

Bright and early today at 5:30 we all got up to get ready for our first class weekend trip to Atrani - so excited! Once we finally made it to Paestum our trip had officially began; Matt gave us a generic history lesson on the area and the ruins and handed us our tickets and told us to meet back at the bus station later that day. Our first stop once we were set free, was to grab some lunch and then Clay and I decided to visit the museum first. The best part about the museum by far was to get the chance to see the fresco from the tomb of the diver. I have always loved that painting ever since I first saw it in my art history class, so the chance to see it in person was crazy! After walking through the museum, we then headed over to do a walk through of the greek temple ruins. There are a lot of ruins there, but the two best ones in my opinion were the temples to Poseidon and Hera. We then spent some time sketching these amazingly well preserved Greek ruins, and then made a run for the bus station to meet Matt.



Watercolor of Chiesa di San Salvatore de Birecto

We then took the bus to Salerno again, to then catch a different bus that would take us to Atrani. Atrani is truly an amazing place - the food is delicious, the people are so welcoming and friendly, and the scenery is amazing. We are so lucky to have had a chance to spend the few days we had there enjoying ourselves on the beach and working on sketching. Definately the highlight of the weekend was the regatta boat race. This begins with a parade by the four cities racing later that day - Amalfi, Venice, Pisa, and Genova. We watched the parade go by several timesin the course of walking over to Amalfi from Atrani, but eventually we stopped following it and instead worked to find ourselves some good spots to watch the race. We knew we needed to be in Amalfi to see the race, but other than that we had no idea where the better seats would be, so we just had to guess and hope for the best. Turns out we were pretty lucky - we managed to find spots up on the hillside that we against the railing overlooking the sea, and we were able to see the end of race almost perfectly. The race was crazy, they all basically looked like they were neck and neck the entire way! When they crossed the finish line it looked like Amalfi and Pisa were tied,and we were all shouting trying to figure out who won. Then over the speaker system they announced that Amalfi won! It was pandamonium! Then to finish off what was already an amazing day, we then had the chance to see an amazing firework show in Amalfi. The fireworks went on forever and they were super colorful while also being nice and loud, just the way I like it! It was an amazing day, go team Amalfi!