Cilento in October - Salerno

It's still windy the next day and quite cold, well, for here, anyway. The drive to Salerno is pleasant, we take the road nearest the sea and everything is going well until I take a wrong turn which sends us down a one-way road towards an unexpected and severe 40km/h speed trap and an endless queue back through the town centre in the other direction. By the time we tackle the narrow and double parked streets of Salerno centre I'm already fraught and the chosen carpark which turns out to be expensive and requires us to leave the keys doesn't help. Navigating the narrow streets is difficult even with Google maps and we are both a little short-tempered.

We happen upon the cathedral almost unexpectedly, no big square in front of it but an enclosed cloister which is, however, pretty. Inside, most of the cathedral is unremarkable but not all, the original mosaics in the apse of the right nave are impressive as are those of the two ambones and the floor around the altar.

The highlight of the cathedral is however the harmonious Baroque crypt with the tomb of Saint Matthew. 

We have a quick look through the narrow streets of the centre and find a good Sfogliatella, and see enough of the sunny promenade to understand it's pleasant but then get a few fried things for lunch and go back to rescue the car.

In the meantime the traffic seems to have got worse and our plan of finding a space on the blue lines near the sea front seems impossible. By now we are both in a bad mood and head out of the city along the sea front. After a while of chugging through the traffic and when car spaces finally start to be available I park and we eat the fried stuff, decidedly unremarkable and anyway cold. But the beach is in the sun and the view of Vietri a mare in the distance and the coast are cheering. We find a coffee in a grotty bar because apparently it's one of those days but also walk a little on the beach in the wind.

On the way back to Agropoli we stop and peer over the endless walls of Paestum at a couple of the temples and then head home to tidy up.

Agropoli does decide to provide a splendid sunset for our last evening in Cilento....

And then, unexpectedly, the day ends with a spectacular firework display.....