Italy--Day Nine. Friday September 03.

A rainy day. No swimming or laying on the beach.

We'd heard of a local place where the buffalo mozzarella was the best. But you had to get there early. So the five of us loaded up and drove the few miles to the place, only to find the parking lot packed. The farm had a big barn where the buffalo were standing around eating, a retail shop where you order the cheese, and a few other buildings dating from the time when this had been just a simple farm, instead of a small industry.

B went inside the packed retail place. You had to take a number, which she did---number 85. They were then serving number 48. So we wandered around a bit, looking at things and coming back every few minutes to check the progress of the line.

Converting hay into milk, which then gets converted into cheese.

After thirty minutes or so, our number came up. It was an efficient operation. You could buy any of three things: 1) butter 2) ricotta in small 1/2 kilo tubs, or 3) mozzarella, which by far was what most people were there for.

You tell the lady how much mozzarella you want, and whether you want the BIG balls, or the SMALL balls. The big ones are about baseball size, the small ones about golf ball size. She walks into the next room, where you can see her scoop the balls out of a large stainless steel tank filled with water and mozzarella. She puts the balls in a plastic bag, weighs them, and when the amount is right, she fills the bag most of the way to the top with water and ties it off.

We bought a tub of ricotta and 2 kilos of mozzarella. Total: €15, or about $19. That's $19 for 4.4 pounds of the finest buffalo mozzarella around, and 1.1 pounds of ricotta. The price, she does not suck!

Thanks for all that cheesy goodness, my friend.

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There are ancient Greek temples in Paestum, the remnants of what had once been a thriving Greek town dating from around 600 BCE. It was drizzling when they dropped me off, so I popped my umbrella and wandered around.

There were not too many people around, so I could get good pictures of the temples, though I did take a few with people in them just to show the sense of scale. There's a museum nearby with lots of artifacts, but I chose just to wander around on my own and think my thoughts.

As usual, the predominant impression I come away with is that nothing is permanent. These ruins were once a thriving town. The centuries took care of that, just like they'll take care of our cities, and us as individuals. We come, we go. Look at scenes from any old US newsreel dating from, say, 1910 and realize that almost all those buildings are gone now, and certainly all the people, even the infants. Nothing lasts and everything changes. 

Do these sorts of thoughts make you sad? Or do they make you glad you're here, able to enjoy the people and experiences you have available to you? 

For me, it's the latter.

This tourist-shot video gives you some good views of the ruins in Paestum.

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Later in the afternoon, B and I took a walk. We went about two miles down a back road. On our right, the large pine trees that extend much of the length of the coast between Agropoli and Salerno. To our left, small houses, open fields, and the inevitable pieces of trash stuck to fences and blowing down the road.

We got to a small street perpendicular to the beach. Souvenier stands and a few restaurants. The entire street looked pretty dead, no doubt because of the cloudy skies. We bought a few items at a small store, then went to the beach and walked back toward our hotel.

The beaches differ. Some are just unimproved stretches, some have a few lifeguard stands and tables and chairs. Many of them, sadly, were littered with trash---plastic bottles, beer cans, paper. Some had no litter of that type, but a lot of small twigs and leaves and other crap that the sea had spit out. I don't know if it's the currents along certain stretches of beach that creates these different piles of detritus, or just the laziness of the beach goers.

But there were no swimmers and no sunbathers, of course. It looked like it would rain at any moment. We did see several fishermen, however, their long fishing poles stuck into tubes they'd shoved into the sand.

Despite the dark skies and windy weather, it was a pleasant walk. When we finally got back to the hotel, we sat outside and stared at the empty tables, the sea, the hills of Agropoli and, across the bay in the other direction, the Amalfi coast. We both felt sad, having gotten to know the place and now having to leave it. We just sat there like that for several minutes, wondering what kind of dream we'd stepped into...and were now about to step out of.

On our beach on the last day, looking back toward Agropoli after our walk.

Our last sunset.