5 Temples To See in Greece

Hey Lovely People!

I hope you are having a very good day today! I definitely am! I plan on talking about my top 5 favorite temples to see in Greece! I really love and miss travelling and cannot wait to get back to it! These posts always make me so happy! I can go through old photos and give people suggestions on what to see and it’s so fun!

Anyways, here is my top 5! These are in no particular order! I loved them all and they’re each beautiful in their own way:

1- Temple of Poseidon in Sounion: It was built in the middle of the 5th century BCE. The temple was originally a collapsed poros temple, and so the temple of Poseidon was built on the remaining foundation. It sites on an a cliff and has an amazing view. There is not a lot of decoration on the temple itself, but the view is amazing, and the temple itself is still very beautiful.

2- Temple of Apollo at Delphi: This is a crazy amazing place to go. Once again the views are worth the trip to Delphi! The temple sits on a hillside and was built around 4th century BC (based on what I read around,  it was originally burnt down and then an earthquake destroyed it, so this is the date of the one that sits there now). There were a number of beautiful and significant statues that stood inside the temple, and treasuries littered the temple. The oracle lived in the temple, telling people what to do and making predictions. People would climb the hillside in order to talk to the oracle who claimed they could talk to Apollo. The site is highly important and the views and size of the temple is the most amazing part.

3. Acropolis in Athens- The acropolis itself is the citadel of Athens, however, the temple within is a beautiful temple dedicated to Athena Nike. It was built around 420 BC. The Acropolis is definitely something you want to check out when you are in Greece, and the temple is just a piece of it that makes it beautiful.

4. Erechtheum, Acropolis- The temple was built around 420 BC and based on some research I did, the east side of the temple is dedicated to Athena Polias, and the west Poseidon- Erechtheus. It’s dedicated to a contest with Athena, and the side dedicated to him is the side where he struck with his trident. The 6 columns are Caryatids (columns that are formed to look like women), which is what the temple is known for.

5. Parthenon, Acropolis- It was built around 447- 432 BC, and it’s main purpose was to house this amazing statue of Athena built out of ivory and gold.  It is dedicated to Athena and is amazing to see. It’s just incredible to look at these large structures and try to figure out how they were even created!

This has been an amazing blog post to write, because when I went to Greece I was only 17. A lot of the information about what I saw, I did not learn until way later. It’s funny, because I did capture a lot of good pictures of very important historical artifacts and architecture in ancient civilization, and had no idea what they were! I just took pictures because they interested me at that time. I’m excited to go back through and see relearn what I saw and add to what I had wrote for experience, that is if I ever get finished my Italy book!

-Erin