Sunday, February 7, 2010

City Walls






Old town was surrounded by over 3 km of masonry walls and 20+ towers. About half the wall and towers remain. Some of the towers are open for visiting, and you can walk on top of the walls. They are of course, not handicap accessible in any sense of the word. The "modern" stairs are in a tight spiral. The original stairs are spiral-ish, the treads are tall and not of even height, and the stone treads are not flat.
It's worth the climb anyway. There are great views, and you can imagine defending the city by shooting arrows out the slit windows. It's interesting to a civil engineer to imagine how the rooms were constructed, how materials were moved, how the roofing must have been put on.
The upper rooms of the towers have fireplaces with chimneys built into the corners. I can't imagine that the uninsulated stone rooms (with no glass in the windows) warmed up much, but maybe it improved the mood of the soldiers on guard duty. My favorite feature in one of the towers is the toilet, kind of a bay window with a hole in the bottom. It's on the outer side of the wall, of course.

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