Temple of Poseidon - FULL VIDEO TOUR (Cape Sounion, Greece)

On our first day of landing into Athens, we drove directly down to Cape Souion to see the Temple of Poseidon! The area and views are beyond amazing! It was an interesting 40-50 mile drive from Athens (You'll see! lol) and very worth it!! The houses are very expensive in this part of Greece and it's a hidden paradise on the Aegean sea.
There is free parking at the temple, so no problems there! The temple is surrounded like a chain-link fence where by the main gate is closed during the night. However, you'll find many people hopping the fence at night and walking up to the temple (I wouldn't recommend it as a tourist!)
When we arrived, it was night time. There is a gift shop and cafe here and the cafe has an outdoor seating area which can be accessed 24/7. So we decided to crack open some ouzo and enjoy the lit-up temple at night! Bright and early the next day, we paid entry and visited the temple!

The temple of Poseidon was constructed in 444–440 BC, over the ruins of a temple dating from the Archaic period. It is perched above the sea at a height of almost 60 metres (200 ft). The design of the temple is a typical hexastyle, i.e., it had a front portico with six columns.[9] Only some columns of the Sounion temple stand today, but when intact it would have closely resembled the contemporary and well-preserved Temple of Hephaestus beneath the Acropolis, which may have been designed by the same architect.

As with all Greek temples, the Poseidon building was rectangular, with a colonnade on all four sides. The total number of original columns was 34: 15 columns still stand today. The columns are of the Doric Order. They were made of locally quarried white marble. They were 6.10 m (20 ft) high, with a diameter of 1 m (3.1 ft) at the base and 79 cm (31 inches) at the top.[10]

At the centre of the temple colonnade would have been the hall of worship (naos), a windowless rectangular room, similar to the partly intact hall at the Temple of Hephaestus. It would have contained, at one end facing the entrance, the cult image, a colossal, ceiling-height (6 metres (20 ft)) bronze statue of Poseidon.[11] Probably covered in gold leaf, it may have resembled a contemporary representation of the god, appropriately found in a shipwreck, shown in the figure above. Poseidon was usually portrayed carrying a trident, the weapon he supposedly used to stir up storms. On the longest day of the year, the sun sets exactly in the middle of the caldera of the island of Patroklos, the extinct volcano that lies offshore, suggesting astrological significance for the siting of the temple. The temple of Poseidon was destroyed in 399 by Emperor Arcadius.

Archaeological excavation of the site in 1906 uncovered numerous artifacts and inscriptions, most notably a marble kouros statue known as the Sounion Kouros[12] and an impressive votive relief,[13] both now in the Athens National Archaeological Museum.[14] A column from the temple can be seen in the British Museum.

Cape Sounion (Modern Greek: Aκρωτήριο Σούνιο, transliterated Akrotírio Soúnio, pronounced [akroˈtirʝo ˈsuɲo]; Ancient Greek: Ἄκρον Σούνιον, Άkron Soúnion; Venetian: Capo Colonne, "Cape of Columns") is a promontory located 69 kilometres (43 mi) south-southeast of Athens, at the southernmost tip of the Attica peninsula in Greece.

Cape Sounion is noted as the site of ruins of an ancient Greek temple of Poseidon, the god of the sea in classical mythology. The remains are perched on the headland, surrounded on three sides by the sea. The ruins bear the deeply engraved name of English Romantic poet Lord Byron (1788–1823).

Video Title: Temple of Poseidon - FULL VIDEO TOUR (Cape Sounion, Greece)

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