Country Images Magazine North January 2018 | Page 28

Paestum
and
Agropoli
Pirates of the Tyrrhenian
Within a thirty minute car journey
north from Castellabate, via the
gateway to Cilento town is the larger
town of Agropoli, just south of Salerno.
Agropoli sits prettily on a promentary looking out at the
Tyrrhenian Sea, where African and Eurasian Plates meet.
Reading facts like this sent me straight to the atlas. Th ere
can be times, even aft er many years of travel where we just
don’t piece the world together in relation to our current
position. With Africa only a short distance away it made this
area of Italy’s coast a target for raids from North Africa in
the 16th and 17th century and, according to one historian,
Turkish Pirates contributed to the diminishing population.
Th e large, as yet to erupt, underground volcano of Mount
Marsili, standing at nearly 3,000 metres, sits just over 450
meters under the sea’s surface. We didn’t see it!
Agropoli is one of the liveliest towns in the area. A ‘must
see’ and it will take you a good day to explore taking in
sights such as Aragonese Castle, built as a watchtower and
reconstructed by the Aragons in the 15th Century, although
there have been other fortresses here since Byzantine times.
Whilst we didn’t have too much time to explore Agropili it
is one of our ‘next time explore’ towns.
Driving on to the impressive ruins of Paestum which dates
28 | CountryImagesMagazine.co.uk