The coast road to Cape Sounio

If you rent one car for one day in Attica, do this with it.

The road from Athens to Cape Sounio runs along the western edge of the peninsula, mostly within sight of the water, and ends at a fifth-century BC temple standing on a cliff above the Aegean. It is about seventy kilometres. You can do it in ninety minutes. You should take five hours.

When to leave

Work backwards from sunset. The temple at Sounio is the reason people make this drive, and it is a sunset place — the light comes in low off the water and the columns go gold. Check what time the sun sets on your date, subtract an hour for being there before it, and subtract however long you intend to spend stopping on the way.

Leaving mid-afternoon usually works. Leaving at nine in the morning means you arrive at the best bit at the worst light.

The route

Head for the coast at Glyfada and simply keep the sea on your right.

Glyfada and Voula are where Athens goes to swim. Organised beaches, cafés, a marina. Good for a coffee, less good if you want quiet.

Vouliagmeni is the pretty one. There is a lake here — Lake Vouliagmeni — fed by underground springs, warm year-round, ringed by a cliff. It costs a few euro to enter and it is worth it.

Varkiza onward is where it starts to feel like a road trip. The development thins, the road tightens against the coastline, and you get the stretch people remember.

Anavyssos and Legrena are small, unhurried, and full of tavernas that are better than they look. If you are eating before the temple, eat here.

Then the road climbs and turns, and the temple appears on the headland ahead of you.

At the temple

The Temple of Poseidon has been there since around 440 BC, watching for ships coming home. It is a ruin in the good sense — enough standing to see what it was, open enough to feel the wind that made sailors care about Poseidon in the first place.

There is an entrance fee and a closing time, and the closing time moves with the season, so check before you go. Bring something warm. The headland is exposed and the temperature drops the moment the sun does.

Lord Byron carved his name into one of the columns in 1810, which was vandalism then and is a tourist attraction now. Do not add yours.

The drive back

You have two options. Retrace the coast, which is beautiful in the dark in a different way, or cut inland through Markopoulo and Koropi and pick up the motorway. Inland is faster and duller. If you are tired, take it.

Practical bits

• Fuel before you leave the Athens side. The coast has stations but they thin out past Varkiza.
• Parking at Sounio is a car park below the site, and it fills close to sunset in summer. Another argument for arriving early.
• Swimming is possible almost the whole way. Keep a towel in the boot.
• The road is two lanes, well surfaced, with bends worth taking slowly. It is not a road to hurry on, and there is no reason to.

A car makes this trip. A bus makes it a journey to a monument. That is the whole difference, and it is why we are in business.