Genoa, Italy is old, hilly, and bunched together. This makes it fun to walk through and find a smash-up of old European architecture and new things. One of the oldest parts is the Mura della città , the city walls that were built from the 9th to 17th centuries. They fold within the rest of the city and are second longest only to the Great Wall of China.
Along parts of the wall the stacked stones open up to form little cubby holes just big enough to stick your fist in. I’m not sure what their old purpose was, but they’ve been reappropriated… In a secluded section near the university these holes are now the storage places for syringes, rubber tourniquets, and used wet-naps. All this paraphernalia is tucked away into these medieval stones as if they were stashed away in private drawers. It was pretty grody. But what a creative way to modernize your old architecture… Suddenly it’s so… junkie-fresh! Bravo haha.
