From September 27th to October 12th, the Paestum Hot Air Balloon Festival in Cilento offers the truly unique opportunity to admire the famous temples from the sky. Visitors can enjoy free flights, tethered flights, kite displays, and a children’s play area.
Imagine the sky of Paestum filled with dozens of colorful hot air balloons and imagine the opportunity to admire the famous temples and, more generally, the beauty of Cilento from above. We are in Campania, a land that needs no introduction, and here from September 27th to October 12th, the Paestum Balloon Festival will be held, a truly unique and evocative event.

Those who wish can experience the thrill of a free flight, departing from the archaeological area and landing in complete safety on a flat spot identified during the flight. The flight can also be an opportunity to satisfy your curiosity about the world of hot air balloons directly from the pilots. The minimum height to participate is 120 cm. Inflations and takeoff: in the morning at 7:30 a.m. and in the afternoon at 4:30 p.m.

For the more cautious, there is an area within the village specifically set up for tethered hot air balloon flights. These balloons, anchored to the ground with special ropes, rise approximately 20-25 meters, offering the truly evocative opportunity to see the temples of Paestum from above.

The airport will return active after a series of expansion and adaptation works begun in 2019 by Gesac, the company that has taken it over since that year and which also takes care of Naples Capodichino airport.

The most significant works will finish in spring, and for this reason in mid-January Gesac had obtained authorization for take-offs and landings from Enav, the company that manages Italian air traffic. The most recent news is that on Wednesday the first airline that will operate at the airport was announced: it is the Spanish Volotea, which has scheduled the first flight to Nantes, France, for 11 July, and to Cagliari on 13 July.

For the moment, Volotea has announced a total of four connections from Salerno airport: the other two are for Italy, Catania and Verona, and should start from 2 September. For all 4 connections the flight frequency will be twice a week. Flights can already be purchased on the company’s website. Volotea already has 23 connections in Campania, but from Capodichino.

The airport is actually in the province of Salerno, between the municipalities of Bellizzi and Pontecagnano Faiano, about twenty kilometers south of Salerno. It was built in 1926, but was small and not suitable for commercial flights. For a long time it was used for various purposes, for example as the headquarters of various flight schools or as a base for the units of some law enforcement bodies that use aircraft. In 2007 it was adapted for commercial traffic for the first time: among other things, four check-in desks, two boarding areas and baggage carousels were built.

Source and Photo: www.ilpost.it