The Marathon area is one of the most popular places outside Athens; but don’t let this deter you. Besides its major monuments, there are other corners of the Plain that are seldom seen and fun to explore. This trip, as all excursions described here, is best undertaken with a rental or private car or a hired driver/taxi. At the top of the Marathon list is the Mound of the Athenians, a 10m–high tumulus erected in 490 BC after the Battle of Marathon between the Persians and the Greeks — an event recounted by ancient authors, including the historian Herodotus (5th c. BC) and the Roman-era traveler Pausanias (2nd c. AD). This hill, and the adjacent bronze statue of the Greek commander Miltiades, marks the spot of a large funeral pyre, where 192 Athenian warriors that died defending Greece were ceremonially cremated. Families of the fallen made dedications at the Mound that included ornate black-figure pottery, now displayed in the Marathon Archaeological Museum. On the access road to this district museum (left turn, beyond the Mound), one passes on the right a modern enclosure  protecting an extensively excavated Early Bronze Age cemetery (Tsepi), visible through large windows; further on stands another, smaller post-battle tumulus, the Mound of the Plataians.

By Roman times, Marathon was also known for its native son Herodes Atticus, the sophist, senator and great public benefactor, who founded a music hall on the South Slope of the Acropolis. Herodes kept a large country estate northwest of the Marathon battlefield and made local benefactions that included the Sanctuary of the Egyptian Gods (ca. AD 160) — a tribute to the emperor Hadrian’s own Nilotic complex at Tivoli outside Rome. This “Sanctuary of Canopus,” once featuring a canal and adjoined by a luxurious Roman bath, is located behind Aghia Kiriaki church on the seafront, in the district of Brexiza. From Athens, via the Marathon Highway, it proves more direct to follow signs to the church than to the archaeological site.

Another tranquil spot in the Marathon area lies west of the town of Marathonas, where a three-storied medieval watchtower (“Oinoi Tower,” 13th c.) overlooks a natural spring, a Frankish chapel (Holy Apostles, 13th c.) and the marble ruins of a unique, Roman-era nymphaeum (water display) installed by Herodes Atticus.

Nearby, a low hill contains a cave, now gated, described by Pausanias and sacred to Pan, the goat-like god credited for the Persians’ “panic” during the Battle of Marathon. Nature walkers will appreciate a well-signed trail network that also begins here, with one path following an ancient road and another leading through a gorge to the foot of the Marathon Dam.