Day 13 - Wednesday, June 26 - Piraeus & Poseidon's Temple

This is the first morning we have been able to relax as all other mornings we had to be up and out of the ship by 7-8am. We had originally planned to take the 9 hour excursion to Mount Olympus but it is a more than a 3 hour drive each  way. We decided to take the afternoon excursion to the temple of Poseidon instead.

This morning we had a relaxing breakfast and spent time in the Explorer's Lounge, watching the ships in the port, writing postcards and getting caught up on reading.

After lunch we got on the bus of Sounion. It was nice to have Scott and Jean on the same tour.

There was about a 1.5 hour bus ride to get there, going along the western coast with many scenic bays. Our tour guide said that Greece has over 8,000 miles of coastline even though it is a small country. The countryside is very dry with a few green shrubs that can survive the dry hot weather but they may not stay green much longer.

A temple to Poseidon, the god of the sea was built here in the 5th century BC. Not long after it was built, it was destroyed by the Persians and rebuilt. In the 4th century AD, it was destroyed by earthquakes and early Christians. Part of it was restored starting in the 19th century. It is quite a commanding structure on a point overlooking the Aegean Sea. During the Venetian Empire, a fort was built here.

An interesting mythology about this location has to due with the death of King Aegeus. Theseus was the son of both King Aegeus and Poseidon (some magic!). Theseus was sent to Crete to defeat the Minotaur and was successful but on the way back to Greece, he forgot to change the sails from black to white. When King Aegeus saw the black sails of the returning ship, he assumed that his son had been killed and he threw himself off the cliff into the sea.

Along our bus ride we saw many half-completed buildings. Just before the economy crashed in 2008, there was a lot of new construction and after the crash, money was not available to complete them so they stand in this state. I don't know what their status is. In downtown Piraeus there are many abandoned and crumbling commercial buildings. This had been a bustling commercial area but the air pollution was so bad that the government forced the businesses to relocate or shut down and nothing has been done with the buildings. One would think that the real estate would be very valuable.


Piraeus Port


Poseidon temple
David, Carmen, Jeanne & Scott at Poseidon Temple


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