There are many Byzantine-era churches still standing in Athens, but this is the only one with a 2,500-year-old column rising through its roof.

A uniquely preserved neo-Gothic church that is now home to a collection of art and woodcarvings.

According to local legend, this church was built with two doors, so that residents of two rival villages had their own entrances.

This Ottoman-era Greek Orthodox Church was built to honor Agia Pareskevi, a Christian saint.

One of the best collections of Byzantine art housed in a magnificent, 19th-century neoclassical home.

A historic building houses one of the most important archaeological institutes in Europe.

The Cycladic architecture makes this Athens neighborhood feel like an island paradise hidden in the shadow of the Acropolis.

A Byzantine church containing the holy remnants of three saints sits atop the site of an ancient temple.

This small 16th-century church in Athens is almost entirely surrounded by a modern building.

The oldest standing Byzantine church in Athens is tucked within a monastery in the middle of an upscale shopping district.

The verdant mossy ruins of a Franciscan monastery lie in the remote Sintra hills awaiting exploration.

An abandoned 17th-century baroque hunting lodge with a wonderfully strange architectural plan.

Peruse rare tomes like poetry bound in pearls or books with branches and berries growing out of their spines.

Fragments of the former temple's lost facade are now displayed in a strange library of stones.

Community bookshelf of 25-foot-tall book spines.

A wondrous old library overlooking the nation's capital.

Home to a vast and influential collection of Shakespeareana.

A nostalgic bibliographic gem.

A fantastic array of trays and cables once whisked books over to the Capitol at 600 feet per minute.

It's not hard to see why the historic Peabody Conservatory of Music's library has been described as a "cathedral of books."

The original toys that inspired the beloved children's stories are on display at the New York Public Library.

One of the last few places in Manhattan that employed a pneumatic systemic keeps it on display.

The oldest bibliophilia club in America, with exhibitions on historic books and graphic arts.

Some big-name visitors have patronized this small-town library named for an oil man's daughter.