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SOUNIO & TEMPLE OF POSEIDON
This is a highly recommended trip to get away from the big urban sprawl that is Athens. Soak up the many shades of blue in the sky and the Med on a coastal bus ride to Sounio a peninsula to the northeast. |
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HOW TO GET THERE? At first everything seemed straightforward enough. Go to Mavromateon terminal at Plateia Egyptou and wait for your bus. Well somebody forgot to tell us that the bus stop was actually hiding behind a thick row of trees at the far end of the Plateia.
In fairness, to Moe & Fred, everything seemed right. There was a bus parked (although empty) that had Sounio on the front & they had asked another bus driver where to catch the bus. So our champions of travel waited...and waited....and waited, until Fred caught a bus turning from a street across the road that had Sounio on it. A bad feeling passed through them both. Moe & Fred went over quickly to investigate. They saw a hidden row (behind some tall trees) where the public buses pulled up. There was one bus there, & with the driver's confirmation, they indeed missed the bus for which they were waiting & now had to wait another hour before the next bus to Cape Sounio. |
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HOW TO OCCUPY YOUR TIME? Well opt for the coastal road first of all, the journey is definitely more scenic. The beautiful blue, clear water of the Aegean Sea & the rocky coast.
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Another source of our entertainment were the people on the bus. The bus driver cranked up the air conditioning. Many people thought or convinced themselves that started to fidget with something over head to control the air coming out - this turned out to be the reading light. This was one of those things where one person does it, someone else thinks they can do better, when in reality, everyone was wrong. |
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Sounio has had people in the area since prehistoric times. In 104 BCE, 1000 slaves from a silver mine permanently settled here. |
There were two temples built. The first in the 5th century was destroyed when the Persians began there run at the world title. The second building survives today although much diminished. |
You can see the temple from far off as you approach. It is fairly well preserved for where it is (in Fred's opinion), just to have that many columns still standing.
We were dropped off near a gift shop, and from there it is a 150 meter hike up a hill to the temple. It was 4€ each. |
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| Indentation in the stone for interlocking with others. |
Moe continued to add to her colletion of flowers below. |
You obviously missed Moe's trick-Ta dah! |
Unlike Ireland, the Sun actually shines in Greece. |
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After the temple Moe and Fred went to catch the bus but they had to wait for another one 1/2 hour later. To pass the time they went to a restaurante up near the cape and had a glass of the local wine Retsina.
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Every once in a while up on the cape we'd hear this weird noise. Fred identified it as a reverse chicken noise. It wasn't really in reverse but it had some elements of the sound a chicken makes but just off. Funny enough it did look like a chicken, but just off, way off.
It had somewhere between 7-10 chicks scurrying around. |
We found all kinds of bad information about how to get to the Cape so we will clear this up right here.
There are two routes to the Cape. The coastal route and the inner land route. There is a public bus that does each route, which alternates every other bus.
Going to the Cape from Mavromateon terminal, the bus leaves every hour.
Going from the Cape to Mavromateon terminal, the bus leaves every 1/2 hour.
it takes almost 2hrs by the coastal road and up to 1/2 hour longer by inner road. |
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