We are starting to recover from jet lag. I woke at a pretty normal time, Ton slept in a little later but that may have been more because we didn’t plan on doing anything than jet lag.
After a while we decided to walk down the coast towards Marathon. Marathon is the site of a famous battle between the ancient Greeks and the Persians. A much smaller Greek army defeated the Persians by attacking both wings of the Persian army. In the military it is known as a double envelopment and the battle of Marathon is the first and most famous double envelopment, so it is still studied in many military academies. It is also the site of the beginning of the first Marathon. The legend is that a runner was dispatched to Athens to deliver the news of the victory, the runner ran the 26 miles to Athens as fast as he could, delivered the news and then collapsed and died.
The walk along the shore was nice as there is a promenade the whole way and frequent seafood restaurants if you wanted to take a break. The walk was a little further than we anticipated, but we enjoyed it.
Part way there we came across a small chapel right on the water. It had some interesting religious art that we enjoyed. All of the signs were in Greek so we are not sure what the story is behind the church but we had it to ourselves and enjoyed a little break.
By the time we got to Marathon port we had walked about 3 miles. Ton asked how far to the battlefield and when I told her 2 more miles, she said unless it is spectacular we should head back, I knew it wasn’t spectacular, a big field with a marsh on one side, so we headed back. We still got a 6 mile walk in which is pretty good exercise.
