Cape Sounion

Every ship that ever approached Athens from the east sailed past Cape Sounion, and every sailor made a sacrifice to Poseidon before he rounded the cape. The temple that crowns the cliff today is from the 5th century BC — Pericles had it built at the height of Athens' golden age — and it has watched over the same sea for 2,400 years. It is a summer evening drive down from Athens, through the pine forests of the Attic coast, with the light just beginning to soften on arrival. The temple is 60 metres above the water, and from the cliff edge the Aegean stretches out in an unbroken blue to the islands of the Cyclades, barely visible on the horizon. The columns — fifteen of them, out of an original thirty-four — stand in a perfect ring, the colour of honey in the low sun. The myth says that here King Aegeus waited for his son Theseus to return from Crete, having promised to hoist a white sail if he had killed the Minotaur and a black one if he had failed. Theseus forgot, the black sail went up, and Aegeus, thinking his son dead, threw himself from this very cliff into the sea that now bears his name. As the sun drops below the horizon, someone lights a cigarette, someone else opens a bottle of wine, and the whole crowd — hundreds of people from a dozen countries — falls silent for the few minutes it takes the sun to touch the sea. The scene is, quietly, one of the most moving in Greece.

The site of Cape Sounion, at the southern tip of the Attic peninsula, was sacred from early times. The first temple on the promontory, a small sanctuary to Poseidon built around 700 BC, was destroyed by the Persians in 480 BC during their invasion of Greece. The temple that stands today was built in the middle of the 5th century BC, during the great building programme of Pericles — the same decades that produced the Parthenon — as a thank-offering and a symbol of Athenian sea power. It was a Doric temple with six columns at the front and thirteen on each side, thirty-four in all, of local marble. Only fifteen columns remain standing today, but they are enough to give the temple its famous silhouette against the sky. Inscribed on the columns are the names of visitors from antiquity — one of them, on a column now in the British Museum, has been attributed to the poet Lord Byron, who visited in 1810 and carved his name. The cape was a landmark of the Athenian fleet and the starting point of the great Panathenaic procession, and its position — the last point of Attica before the open sea — gave it a strategic importance that lasted into modern times. The ancient Athenians considered Sounion the frontier of their world, a place where the known world met the endless sea. The site, with its fortification walls of the 5th century BC and the remains of a small sanctuary of Athena nearby, is now one of the most visited monuments of Greece.

The Athenian coast is where the city's residents come to eat, and Sounion is the southern gateway. The tavernas of the small port below the temple serve fresh fish — grilled barbounia (red mullet), whole sea bass with lemon and olive oil, octopus, and calamari — alongside the classics: horiatiki, fried zucchini flowers, and cheese saganaki. The wines of Attica, particularly the crisp whites from the slopes around the cape, pair perfectly with the seafood. If you drive back to Athens in the evening, stop at a seaside taverna in Saronida or Anavyssos — they serve the same fish, for a fraction of the price of the tourist spots directly under the temple. And finish with the local pasteli — a sesame and honey bar that is Attica's oldest sweet.

The temple is at its most spectacular at sunset, but in high summer the sunset hours are crowded. Go in spring or autumn, when the evening light is golden and the crowds thinner. At midday the sun is harsh and the marble is white and glaring — worth it only if you want the site almost to yourself. Winter sunsets, over a rough grey sea, are dramatic in a different way and nearly empty. The site is about 70 km (an hour and a half) from central Athens, and the coastal road past Vouliagmeni is one of the most beautiful drives in Attica.

Cape Sounion lies about 70 km south-east of Athens, roughly 8 km beyond Lavrio on the southern tip of the Attica peninsula, and has no railway or ferry of its own — arrival is by road. The quickest drive takes about an hour via the A6 motorway towards Koropi and Markopoulo, while the coastal road through Glyfada, Vouliagmeni and Lavrio takes nearer an hour and a half. KTEL Attica intercity buses serve the cape from the Pedion tou Areos terminal at Aigyptou Square in central Athens, taking about two hours.

Time your visit for the hour before sunset and stay until after — the moment the sun touches the sea is the reason everyone comes. Buy your ticket before the ticket office closes (the site stays open until well after sunset in summer). Bring water — the promontory is exposed, dry, and windy. The Temple of Poseidon is not accessible — you view it from the perimeter, which is fine; the best photographs are taken from the path below the columns. Combine the trip with the Athenian Riviera: stop at the Lake of Vouliagmeni for a swim, or at the beach of Legrena, 5 minutes away, for a last dip below the temple. And when you look out at the empty horizon from the cliff edge, remember: for every sailor of the ancient world, this was the last land they saw on the way to war, and the first they saw on the way home. Poseidon watched them all.