History, facts and travel tips about Paestum
Paestum, at the start of the Cilento coast, is the site of the only well-preserved Greek Temples north of Sicily. By the 9th century or so, this once-great city was breathing its last, a victim of economic decline and Arab raiders. As its people gradually abandoned it for safer settlements in the hills, Paestum was swallowed up by the thick forests of this subtropical corner of Italy.
As usual on a Mediterranean coastal plain, when the people leave the malaria mosquitoes take over, and the anopheles mosquito, as fate would have it, can take some of the credit for preserving Paestum's ruins so well.