Ermou

This guide to Ermou in Athens opens with a standoff: architect Leo von Klenze's plan for a grand shopping avenue ran straight into an eight-hundred-year-old church, Kapnikarea, and only King Ludwig the First of Bavaria's intervention kept it standing. It follows the street from its 1838 paving through generations of hatters, tailors and a legendary pastry shop, on the way to becoming one of the world's priciest retail addresses. Listen for how the sunken little church still holds its ground.