Monastiraki Square Panorama & Historic Landmarks, Athens

The dome dominating this view has a nastier backstory than most mosques get. Tzistarakis Mosque was built in 1759 on the order of Mustafa Agha Tzistarakis, the Ottoman governor of Athens at the time — who broke an imperial edict by tearing down a column from the Temple of Olympian Zeus (some accounts say Hadrian's Library) to burn into lime for construction. According to the story Athenians told afterward, that was the trigger for a plague that killed hundreds of Ottomans and Greeks alike; whether or not the timing was really connected, Tzistarakis was arrested, stripped of his post, and later turned up murdered. The mosque he built survives; he didn't.

A few steps away, the Church of the Virgin Mary Pantanassa is the actual "little monastery" the whole district is named for — Monastiraki, in Greek. It's the last visible trace of a small Orthodox nunnery that stood on this square back when this was Ottoman territory, restored into its current form in the 17th century.

The rest of this view catches both of them from street level, looking up — including a glimpse toward A for Athens, a hotel bar whose rooftop terrace sits directly over the square with a 360-degree line of sight that takes in the Acropolis on one side and the flea market rooftops on the other. Seeing it from below, rather than from that terrace, is what turns a several-thousand-year timeline — ancient temple, Ottoman mosque, modern rooftop bar — into a single street-level frame.

This is what TravelHubCam is here to show you: a live-style panorama of one square that's been rebuilt, renamed, and reused by three different empires without ever stopping being the center of this part of Athens.