Monastiraki Square

Monastiraki Square centers on a low, red-tiled roof sitting directly against the concrete expanse of the metro station. This is the Church of the Pantanassa, an eleventh-century remnant of a larger monastery that once gave the entire district its name. While modern Athens surges around it with street vendors and rattling trains, this small Byzantine structure keeps its original stone foundation. In eighteen eighty-five, workers digging the square’s first subway line uncovered a massive section of an ancient Roman drainage tunnel beneath it.