This morning was bittersweet.  We were very sad to say goodbye to Matt and Anna. We had such a great time with them exploring Rome. Maybe even too good of a time at points. That being said, Italy isn’t going to see itself, so we must move on. We left the apartment and headed to the train station to pick up our next rental car, the Alfa Romeo.

Southward bound! We got on the autostrada towards Naples and even though the weather was a little unsettled the scenery got more and more Spring like with green hills and flowering fruit trees everywhere. For quite a bit of the drive we had Vesuvius directly in front of us and eventually the ocean. Towards the end of drive we took a detour looking for food then Waze went on the fritz so we got a little lost around Salerno. Instead of driving the highway for the last 20 minutes we took the coastal route through fields and a ton of greenhouses with the ocean peaking out between the Cyprus groves that separated us from the beach.

When we got into Paestum, our destination for the day we were ready for lunch so we went directly to the buffalo farm called Caseficio Berlotti. We thought they’d just have a little store where we could buy some cheese or a snack but they actually had a really nice restaurant serving dishes based around meat and cheese from their herd, which were also hanging out in the paddock right by the window. After lunch we got to meet the buffalo, including the little babies, some of whom were born last week and were really, really cute.

Paestum is an archeological site like Pompeii except it never got buried in ash and also it’s not as crowded. (And there are the buffalos across the street). Now we’re in the hotel hanging out and the plan is tomorrow to check it out and also maybe see the beach if it’s warm enough.