Temple of Apollo in Aegina

After a lunch of tasty gyros, we walked up to the Temple of Apollo. It was a very short walk from the Port of Aegina to the entrance to the temple, but we took it slowly because it was a beautiful day and we enjoyed the water hitting the beach next to us. 

Once again, the entrance fee was negated for EU students and just I needed to pay, and we headed first to the Archaeological Museum of Aegina. 

To me, it's amazing that something this large was built at all... moving it around would not have been pleasant on those hills. And how did they get things out? Those questions were not answered as we browsed the museum.

These ruins were neat because we were almost alone there, so it felt like we had the place to ourselves, and we liked it because you could explore them from much closer - you could actually walk up and climb around on the temple itself. 

The Temple of Apollo was built around 500 BC. The hill it's built on is called the Hill of Kolona which according to the internet means column, referring to the one column that's still standing on the temple. When it was excavated, there were several tombs here that had jewelry still inside (that jewelry is in a museum somewhere else).

We headed down to the beach below after walking around on the temple ruins.

What a pretty place!