5 things to know when visiting southern Italy
August 29, 2020
Once again some exciting days are behind me and I made my way after Puglia to Matera, Salerno down to Paestum. In the end, I have crossed over from the east to the west in southern Italy. Well, what are the first insights from me in southern Italy…
- The signs on the roads, which suggest a maximum speed in Germany, are in Italy, similar to Croatia probably speed minimum signs. For example, if a red sign says a 40 and you drive 60, you will be honked at from behind and overtaken in the best possible position. The best possible position is usually marked in such a way that the minimum corona distance of 1m safety distance between cars is far below and even oncoming traffic is not important. Let us hope my car is not getting sick
- It is important to keep at least one arm or leg out of the open window while driving. This seems to be very important even with air conditioning! I am currently still trying with one arm. I will let you know as soon as I can put my leg out of the window!
- It is extremely important not to hurt your arms and legs, as they are an important element of speech in southern Italy. So please pay attention when practicing point 2! If someone speaks English, Spanish or German, I’m already doing leaps in the air. Unfortunately it happens rarely, but it can happen!
- If you drive with a truck or open trunk in your car, it is very important NOT to secure the load completely! Securing means too much work and also that the driver behind you could get bored. Excitement while driving must be in southern Italy! Always take it to heart! In order to adapt, it might be a good idea to fix a bicycle with armored tape on the roof.
- The toilets… going to the toilets in southern Italy is not a real celebration like in Germany. The toilets here are a place of horror! In order for this to be the case, the southern Italian has come up with a lot of ideas. Very popular is not to give the chance at all to visit a toilet. Even at freeway rest areas it is only sometimes to be found. If it is, there is actually only rarely a toilet seat. Toilet seat is either a sign of Satan or absolute luxury. I think it is a sign of Satan! If there is a toilet seat (remember, probably a sign of Satan), the probability is very high that there is no toilet paper. Meanwhile I am convinced that the southern Italian himself, does not visit any toilets at all! adventure vacation Italy – whoop whoop
If you have mastered or accepted these five things, you will have no problem finding your way around in southern Italy and will certainly be accepted quickly. After this short intro I have to tell you that I am not yet ready to get the full acceptance of a Southern Italian. Maybe soon haha.
Let’s start with an intermediate picture from Matera, where I watched the Championsleauge final (hurrrrrrrrrrrraaaa!!!!! Bayern Bayern…!!!!) and also visited the city of Matera (nice by the way).
From there I first went to Salerno. In Salerno there was a really really good pizzaria where I was spoiled absolutely without having to speak English! Top waitress, who as much as she tried hard with her Italian – anyway… I didnt really understand but I always said „si“ haha. Here I was on two days xD. Short picture of my pizza and afterwards I had a (homemade?) limoncello on the house – highly recommended
Pizzeria I Due Gioielli di De Rosa Raffaele, Via degli Etruschi, 78/80, 84135 Salerno SA
Then I went on to Paestum. Paestum still has really well preserved temples from about 450-550 before Christ. Really insanely well preserved! That’s why there are some great pictures to follow! By the way, here was one of my pleasant moments when I arrived at a super cheap camping site for 8€ a night. Well, the camping site had the best days behind it but with this price you can’t expect too much. Nevertheless a really nice older man, who after a short greeting and looking at my license plate also spoke German with me. He learned German 20 years ago, when a lot of Germans came to him at the campground and I think he was really happy to speak a little German again. In any case, I learned that Paestum was an important landing site for the Allies in Operation Avalanche on 09.09.1943. And even today the survivors of the fighting still meet every year on September 9th to commemorate that day. Okay, I still have one more story. His father fought in North Africa during the World War II and was then captured in England. But it wasn’t a real captivity. In England many of them worked on farms and were probably evenly regarded. In any case, his father wanted to marry an English woman. I had to laugh for a moment, because obviously he didn’t do it. However, I asked again for confirmation ;-). And it was confirmed with a smile, that his father has reconsidered and went back to Italy, which made his parents very happy.
And before we jump to the end of the post, I would like to mention that I had an excellent evening conversation. Because in Paestum there were also friends of mine who cooked me excellent meals. But I think on the third evening they got tired of it and we ordered pizza next door hahaha. Again Merci to Amke and Marius and with that I say Ciao and see you soon! It goes on alone again 🙂
English 
Deutsch
Ist das vielleicht Safran auf der Pizza?
Ich bin wirklich überfragt 😗😅
Tobi, Du musst hier unbeding bildlich dokumentieren, wie Du mit dem Erlernen der süditalienischen Fahrkünste vorankommst- ich sähe gerne ein Bild, wo Du alle 4 Gliedmaßen aus dem Autofenster hältst und dann bspw. mit der Zunge lenkst 😉
Ansonsten wirkst Du an der Laute sehr souverän- ggf noch eine Möglichkeit, nebenher Dein Budget etwas aufzufüllen ?!?
Vielen Dank. Ich werde es nochmal überdenken, mein Geld auf diese Weise zu verdienen