Temple of Poseiden

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I have been remiss in adding to my blog. I'm 2 countries later and I need to catch up. It may end up being more pictures than typing since it takes an insanely long amount of time to upload pictures with mediocre connections. Or maybe I'm just too tired at the end of a long day and ready to sleep!! On that note, I'll wrap up Greece...
Temple of Poseidon - Sounio (Cape Sounion)

Driving from Delphi to Sounion was pretty and relatively uneventful for the first half. The second half however was back to the stress of driving in Greece. Bits I didn’t add to the blog about driving: the roads are not well labeled AT ALL. If you have a map that is actually labeled to show you the road number, it probably doesn’t matter because the road itself is not labeled except MAYBE just at the very beginning when you turn on to it. So most of the time we could not confirm we were on the correct road. The road signs were in Greek to start and then another sign in English further down the road just before the actual turn you would have to make. And sometimes it seemed that the distance markers really meant it was that far to the next sign that told you when to turn. Either that or many times we were driving in circles so that something was always just 10 km away… every sign was 10 km… Yes this is venting frustration about driving in Greece!! As we got to Athens, the roads became more snarled and confusing. We must have missed a turn and had to turn around to get back on the highway to go the way we wanted.

But before I continue on this frustrating driving saga - mid morning we did stop at a roadside café where a very wonderful Greek woman, who did not speak English, was happy to figure out that we just wanted some coffee and water. She was wonderful, it was a nice break and a pretty place. We ran in to plenty of people out in the country-side that were just this way. When you sit at the tables, you get water, and biscotti with your coffee - yes you do pay for table service but it was well worth it every time.

As we finally found our way past Athens, we were just rolling along when suddenly, the highway was blocked off by police - the road was closed!! So we were diverted with the rest to a road that ran alongside the highway and at this point we were ready for another break. We randomly picked a restaurant, just not caring at this point- needing to get OFF the road for a bit. Once again, it was a family owned/run café where they did not speak any English. In fact, they also could not find an English menu. The family was there finishing a meal together so the man who seated us had one of the young boys come to the table to try to read the menu to us -it was so funny because this poor boy had a bright red face and he only managed to say Greek Salad. So between the boy, the man who seated us, the cook, and the mother of the boy, we managed to get greek salad with a huge chunk of really awesome feta (that really does taste way better than in the US), grilled bread, coffee, wine (they charge 3 euro for a half liter), and the most awesome grilled lamb chops. It was a great meal and all for less than 20 Euro for both of us.

Once we got back on the road… we are just rolling along and all of a sudden, we are diverted again. This time the road was blocked by a trailer of a truck that was just pulled on to the road. We were diverted down half of the highway where the road was cut off by some festival or event or rally or something!! We have no idea what it was. People were camping out under the olive trees, the highway was blocked off for this and the attendees were parked on the road. It was weird and we didn’t understand. We asked how to get to our road and they sent us down a rutted dirt road under the olive trees. It was weird (I think I said that already). And once we were back on a paved road and saw a sign to our destination, THAT road was blocked by a huge mound of dirt!!!!! I said I was starting to feel like we were the victims in one of those horror movies.. And we were being diverted to a place where we would be possessed and made in to worker bees or something. We started to feel reassured when we saw tour buses J even though they had a hard time passing each other on the road…

At long last, we reach the coast and Sunio (or Sunion). The Temple of Poseiden was glowing up on the hill and it was really beautiful. But to start, the view from the hotel was also amazing - the sunset was so nice. The Temple of Poseiden was apparently rebuilt in the 5th century BC and that was what we saw here. We were not allowed to walk in to the temple but could walk all around it - and we could see graffiti carved in to the stones of the Temple - I saw it dating back at least to 1890 in English and I have no idea how long the Greek graffiti was there. Apparently Lord Byron was compelled to add his name on there somewhere but I could not find it. It was an amazing site really. Gorgeous. The sea was breathtaking blue and regardless of all the driving stress, makes me want to visit the islands.

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Photos

View from hotel
breathtaking. The coast of the mainland is on the left and I am not sure what island that is out there.

Temple of Poseiden
View as we approached from the parking area

Temple of Poseiden
I rather like this shot. It would have been nice if we could walk in the Temple but it is now blocked off.

Bird with attitude
I am not sure what kind of bird this is. they were all over and were not afraid of people.

From the temple out to the water
An incredible view up there. A suitable location for a God of the Seas

Another temple picture.
What can I say - it was very picturesque

Long shot
Yup, that's the temple again - tiny on the hill top.

Dragon rock
I thought this rock looked like a dragon. it was in the harbor (?) outside the hotel.

Sunset shot
Yes, this is what we watched. SWEET.