Many museums, archeological sites, galleries and gardens are free to enter on the first Sunday of every month. This means that the roads in the vicinity of any participating in this freebie can get busy. Very, very busy.
We didn’t know this. So couldn’t consider the consequences. When you have a couple of bright sparks on board who know their way around this planet’s roads like the back of their hands, you get lazy. You don’t get a real map out. You tend to do that after you reach your destination. So trust is key. Sort of.
We had a long journey south planned. In search of some more sun. The terrain hinders. We’ve hardly seen a straight road over here. The Ancient Romans must have been frustrated. Their town layouts always adhering to an American Style grid system. They couldn’t do that with the roads. Too many mountains. That’s probably one of the reasons why they invaded us. Just so that they could lay down a few Icknield Streets and Fosse Ways. Get it out of their system.
Missy knows we don’t like motorways. In her wisdom, we head north to go south. We obey. End up passing (very slowly) the Pompeii ruins. Two hours after leaving Sorrento we’d gone about 20K. Time to review our plans. As it happens I hadn’t spotted that the site we were heading for was closed for the season. We change course for Paestum, via Salerno. Bad move. Salerno is a very large container port/old town. How the container lorries get down there will remain a mystery. We couldn’t. Virtually all streets are narrow and one way. The type that get me on edge. We edge down a particularly steep lane. End up nose to nose with a local Bobbie on point duty. Eye brows raise in tandem. I didn’t want to see him. He certainly didn’t want to see me. I discern a miniscule shake of the head. I read his mind. “Here come another idiot”. He quickly realises his first few sentences are falling on stupid ears. He can’t speak English. “Parlez-vous Francais?” Then it’s all a confusion of tout droit, à gauche, à droit, head nodding and thumbs up. He gets us onto a motorway heading the wrong way. We end up paying a toll for the very first time. Life is sad. But doesn’t stay sad. We eventually pitch up in the pines of Paestum. Beach side. A sixty second walk works wonders. Flat sands, Calm sea. Calming souls. We take a long walk.
We bump into an ex-US marine who’s served in Afghanistan and Iraq. He’s re-tracing his granddad’s footsteps. Seems Paestum was one of the WW2 landing sites used for the Allied Invasion of Italy.