Monastiraki Square is the densest minute of history in Athens: turn once and you take in a Byzantine church, an Ottoman mosque, a Roman library and a railway from the 1890s, with the Acropolis floating over the lot. Come on a Sunday morning, when the flea market is in full swing.
Start in the square by the little church, then read the pink dome of the Tzistarakis Mosque — 1759, now a ceramics museum, and the subject of a good curse story about a vandalised Parthenon column. Walk the columns of Hadrian's Library on Areos, then turn into the market proper at Avissinias Square, where the antique and junk dealers cluster thickest. Brass, old cameras, mismatched chairs; the haggling is part of it, the browsing costs nothing. Ifestou street runs the leather-and-vinyl spine off it.
Finish by crossing into Psyrri, the old workshop quarter gone over to bars, tavernes and painted walls — a coffee or a plate of mezze before you cut down to Thiseio for the metro. The whole loop runs under three kilometres and never leaves the ancient city's shadow.
