Kolonaki

This guide to Kolonaki in Athens starts with a two-meter marble pillar once believed to ward off plague, standing alone in what were goat pastures on the edge of the city. It follows the neighborhood from Ottoman-era herding through 1834, when Greece's new king built his palace nearby and aristocrats raised neoclassical mansions on the old pastures, turning it into the city's most fashionable address. Writers and actors, among them Kazantzakis and Melina Mercouri, later gathered at nearby cafes a few tables from cabinet ministers.