Marathon in a day, the battle plain, a sanctuary above the sea and a pine-backed beach.

Marathon is 40 km from Athens and almost nobody goes. It is a pity: the plain where the battle was fought in 490 BC is still there, with the tumulus of the dead in the middle of the fields, a museum that explains it, a sanctuary of Nemesis above the Euboean strait and a long pine-backed beach in the bay where the Persians anchored. This plan combines the three things in the morning, before they close at 15:30, leaves the afternoon for the beach and returns to Athens for dinner.

The day, hour by hour

8:30 · Leave Athens. By Marathonos Avenue, about 50 minutes.

9:30 · The museum, at Vrana. The victory trophy, the busts of Herodes Atticus, who was born here, and the Egyptian statues from Brexiza. Next to the museum, the tumulus of the Plataeans. €5.

11:00 · The tumulus of the Athenians. The Soros, nine metres of earth over the fallen hoplites. €5. Half an hour to walk round it and imagine the plain without houses.

12:00 · Rhamnous. Twenty minutes north, above the sea. The temples of Nemesis and Themis and the path of tombs up to the fortress. €5. It closes at 15:30: do not dawdle.

14:30 · Schinias. You go down to the bay, have something to eat on the beach and swim in the shade of the pines.

18:00 · Return. If you like, via the marble dam of Lake Marathon.

20:00 · Dinner in Athens. At the Electra Roof Garden, with the Acropolis lit up; book.