Sounion

Sounion National Park was declared in 1974 at the southern tip of the Attic peninsula, some seventy kilometres south of Athens, and protects some 35 km² of coast, cliffs and Mediterranean scrub around the cape of the same name.

The vegetation is that typical of southern Attica, with maquis and garrigue of mastic, kermes oak, rockrose and dwarf fan palm, adapted to poor soils, dry summers and constant wind, alongside Aleppo pine woods. The sea cliffs and rocky coves hold seabirds and cliff-nesting birds, and the area is a passage point for birds migrating between Europe and Africa.

Its best-known feature is cultural: on top of the cape, on a cliff some sixty metres above the Aegean, stand the columns of the temple of Poseidon, built around 444 BC on an earlier sanctuary. It was the first point of Attic land that sailors saw on returning and the last on departing, and for that reason it was a place of offerings to the god of the sea. On one of its columns is carved the name of Lord Byron, who visited it in 1810. The proximity of Athens and the urban and property pressure along the coast are the area's main threats.