Sixteen Doric columns of white Pentelic marble on a 60-metre cliff at the southern tip of Attica — the great sunset image of the Athens trip.
The Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion was built in 444 BC by the same architects who built the Hephaisteion in the Athens Agora — sister temple to the Parthenon, in the same generation. Sixteen of its thirty-four white Pentelic-marble columns are still standing, on a limestone cliff sixty metres above the Aegean.
The cape was the southernmost point of Attica, the lookout for ships rounding into Athens; the temple was the dedication. Lord Byron carved his name into one of the columns in 1810 (still visible, on the second column from the entrance on the south side). Pericles Day–Lewis filmed the temple at sunset in 1962. The visit takes about ninety minutes — walk up the marble path from the car park, an hour around the temple itself, the small viewing terraces below the cliff. Time the visit for the last hour before sunset; the temple turns gold; the Aegean fills with light; everyone falls quiet at the same moment. Tickets €10 cash or card; the small site-museum is free with the ticket. The ruins of the small Temple of Athena Sounias (470 BC) sit on the lower hill 200 metres north of the main temple — much less visited; worth the ten extra minutes.
A perfect Sounion day.
Leave Athens via the coastal road; the slow Riviera version is sixty-five kilometres in 75 minutes; the highway version (E94) is faster but skips the coast.
Forty-minute float in the geothermal saltwater; small fish work on your feet; the right pre-lunch slow start.
Sea-level fish taverna in Anavyssos; ninety-minute lunch; book a table by the water; €40 per head.
Twenty minutes' drive; arrive at the cape with three hours of light.
Walk to the smaller, less-visited Athena temple on the lower hill first — twenty minutes; nobody else goes.
Ninety minutes around the main temple; find Byron's column, walk the perimeter, pick a sunset spot 18:00.
Drive back along the coast forty-five minutes; book the late-summer terrace at Lambros for the second fish meal of the day.
Driving north along the coast.
Five minutes' drive north — the working fishing harbour. Detail on the Palaia Fokaia page.
Twenty minutes' drive north — fishing villages with great fish tavernas. Detail on the Lagonisi page.
Thirty minutes' drive north — the long sandy beach with the marina. Detail on the Varkiza page.
Forty-five minutes' drive north — the geothermal saltwater lake. Detail on the Vouliagmeni page.
Fifty minutes' drive north — the start of the Athens Riviera. Detail on the Glyfada page.
Tell us a little about the trip you want — pace, who's coming, how you'd like to spend your mornings. We'll build the days.
