Showing the position of a marker moving along a custom map route depending on the time of day

As written in the title: I want to be able to embed a map in my website, having a marker moving along a custom pre-defined route, and to be able to see its position which has to be dependant on the time of day. Something like Google's Santa Tracker, just simpler.

(Brief backstory: my grandfather passed away; he used to walk a lot and I know my mom would love it if she could see where he's "currently walking" at random times of the day along one of his most walked routes in town)

E.g.: it's 11am and once I click on the main button the map shows me the marker in its position, maybe very slowly moving towards its 12pm position. If it's night, the marker has to be still in a fixed location until the time comes for the route to repeat itself the next day.

I'm not sharing what I've tried because I've Google'd around but I have no idea of how I'd manage something like this; I don't want people to write my code for me, I just need some suggestions as to what I should look into to make something like this.

Would the Google Maps Javascript API suffice? What else do I need to look into?

Thank you for any and all suggestions.