Travel
with us in style,
seeking for culture and
leisure.
PAESTUM
Paestum is one of
the most important archaeological sites of Italy.
It was founded around 600 B.C., by Greek colonists
from Sibari, under the name of Poseidonia.
Museum:
This includes the famous Methopes, low reliefs
in Doric style of the 6th century B.C., which
formed part of a small temple, near the Temple
of Hera at the mouth of the Sele River.
Also of extreme importance are the funerary paintings
found in numerous tombs, the most famous of these
being the Tomb of the Diver.
Temples
and Monuments: Reached through the "Sacred Way",
the temple of Hera (Juno), built in the 6th century
B.C., the peristyle of which comprises 50 archaic
fluted columns; the Temple of Neptune (Poseidon
in Greek) dating from the mid 5th century BC,
in an admirably pure Doric style; The Forum, the
Roman amphitheatre, and the Temple of Caeres.
RAVELLO
Having sprung up
probably in the 6th century, it was populated,
round about the year one thousand, by a group
of nobles from the Maritime Republic of Amalfi
who had rebelled against the authority of the
Doge. The rebels made a good choice when choosing
the site in which to built their refuge: Ravello
rises in an easily defendable position.
The city quickly prospered, thanks in particular
to the flourishing wool-spinning mill, known
in olden times as the "Celendra",
that on the 23rd of April 1292 was conceded
to Bishop Giovanni Allegri by King Charles Il
of Anjou, to provident agriculture and to the
intense trade exchange carried out on the Mediterranean
sea routes, especially with the Arabs and Byzantines.
In 1137 Bernardo da Chiaravalle described the
city as "...ancient, well fortified and
impregnable, as well as being opulent it is
so beautiful that it can easily be numbered
among the first and most noble cities ...".
The history of Ravello was strictly connected
with the glorious and tormented history of the
Maritime Republic of Amalfi, whose lot she followed.
Its economic and political decline began in
the Norman period and became dramatic in the
course of the seventeenth century: having lost
its prosperous economy, Ravello had only...
all the rest: an incomparable position from
the naturalistic point of view and architectural
and artistic marvels built during the centuries
of splendour.
AMALFI
The Cathedral,
founded in the 9th century, retains its original
bell tower.
The church went through a number of alterations
and eventually the façade was re-built
in the 19th century based on the original monument.
There are two important doors, at the entrance
and two 12th century ambos in the interior. From
the atrium, the access to the Cloister of Paradise,
which is one of the most cherming pieces of Norman/Arab
architecture.
