Cape Sounion

Cape Sounion is one of my favourite places in the world. So I was definitely going to get there on this trip. And I didn't want to do it as a tour, although my hotel reception said you couldn't get there directly otherwise. Well armed with guidebook and internet I knew there was a local bus down to it. And it runs every 30 minutes, but alternately on an inland and coastal route. So I found the bus station (well kiosk across the road from two lines of bus stops) in time to catch the 8:30am coastal bus. Only to find this very month they had changed the timetables after several years, so now the buses were hourly. And not every hour. So now there is a 7am, 8am and 10 am, but no 9am (presumably because that would be the most popular run). So in short I had a 90 minute wait until the next bus.

So I went into the local park. Which I soon realised was the favoured venue for druggies and vagrants. Ah well, not a good start to the day.

But, finally on the bus, my mood lifted. Well I couldn't help it, since I was travelling down the coastal road and peering out at the Aegean. These few photos out of a moving bus window hardly do it justice. A two hour journey, but a very enjoyable one.

And finally one arrives at Cape Sounion. The bus stops just outside the archaeological site. The Temple of Poseidon sits on the promontory. Its quite idyllic, if you like that sort of thing. And coming by bus I was not part of a tour group, so happily spent a further two hours wandering around the temple and the Cape.

 Even if the Temple wasn't there, you could go just for the views. But of course that was one of the attractions of building the temple there in the first place.

 Being Spring the hillside is covered in colourful Spring flowers.

 

The main claim to fame of the Temple, nowadays, is that Lord Byron loved it so much he decided to carve graffiti into it. Sadly less talented poets have copied him, so now the Temple is roped off. But since it still has most of it's pillars in tact, it holds a delightful vision n the landscape.

 

 This is what remains of a small jetty from the ancient world.

 

  

As for wildlife, there ere even a few partridges about amongst the grass and ruins.