I do like to be beside the seaside.....

Our next stop was a Campsite close to the seaside town of Praia a Mare (La Mantinera). The campsite was very large but full of shabby old static caravans making it hard for us to find a decent pitch. We walked the 300 metres to the sea front but were disappointed to find the road to the beach had litter and discarded rubbish bags everywhere. The beach itself was pretty enough and lots of preparations were going on for the upcoming summer season and there was a good cycle path going all the way along the beach for about 2 miles so it wasn't all bad. The Italians have their beaches sectioned off and each 'Lido' has their own beach bar and sun beds/ parasols for hire, if you don't want to use a Lido there is still space to lay down a towel for sunbathing, a bit different to our beaches in the UK.

We only stayed here for two nights before moving on, at this point we decided not to continue south to Sicily as after chatting to other motorhomers we discovered the sites were not so good and the rubbish problem was even worse on the island. Our next stop would be further north at a site not far south of Naples. 

This turned out to be a good move as Ferdinando who ran  the campsite (La Foce die Tramonti) looked after us so well and we had a fantastic pitch looking out over the Amalfi Coast- we had a wonderful three days.

We had only just arrived when Ferdinando brought us 'presents' of fresh fruit and 'a egg of the goose' so we had a delicious Spanish omelette that evening with the cold potatoes I already had in the fridge from dinner the night before. Do you know what the name of the fruit is?

The next day we cycled the 7 miles to the Ancient 

Greek site of Poseidania renamed by the Romans as Paestum - the temples date back to 6th century 

BC and were just awesome! 

There was also a museum that held many of the original pottery and paintings excavated from the site.

This painting is from the later Roman settlement on the site, it's called 'The lovers'

Ooh saucy Mrs!!! as Frankie Howard might say.......

Later that day we had pizza cooked and delivered by Ferdinado followed by an amazing sunset

When we go off touring on these long trips our favourite thing to do is to get out on our bikes and explore, unfortunately the only way to do this from this site was along a very busy road complete with crazy Italian drivers and a prostitute standing on the side of the road - not such fun! So although the campsite was great we still had to move on after a few days to find somewhere more tranquil. Another 250 km up the road and we found it!

I'll tell you all about it next time!