Temple of Apollo (Aegina Island)

In the middle of Aegina Town, on a small headland the locals call Kolona, Greek for "column", a single standing Doric column is all that remains above ground of the ancient Temple of Apollo. The name stuck after Venetian sailors used the lone column as a navigation marker for ships approaching the harbour, and it has denoted the site ever since.

The hill itself has a much longer history than the temple that gave it its modern name: it served as the acropolis of Aegina from as early as the Bronze Age, when the island was already a fortified settlement guarding its two ancient harbours. The temple was raised on top of that older settlement at the end of the 6th century BCE, earlier, in fact, than the Parthenon in Athens, using local limestone for its columns and walls, while its pediments, carved in imported Parian marble, depicted scenes from the Amazonomachy, the mythical battle between Greeks and Amazons.

Of the temple's original colonnade only one column is still upright today. The surrounding foundations, along with traces of the sanctuary's precinct wall and a nearby cemetery, are enclosed within the grounds of the Archaeological Museum of Aegina, which sits immediately next to the site and can be reached through the museum's garden gate, a short walk of around fifteen minutes, or a few minutes by car, from Aegina's main port.

Compared with the island's other great sanctuary, the Temple of Aphaia on Aegina's eastern hills, Kolona is a far more modest ruin: little survives above foundation level, and most of what is known about the temple's decoration comes from fragments now held in the adjoining museum. Even so, its position on a low rise looking directly over the harbour makes it one of the easiest ancient sites in the Saronic Gulf to combine with a stop in Aegina Town, whether visitors arrive on a day trip from Athens or on a gulet cruise along the Greece coast.