My idea of a holiday is to go to a historic town without any prior research; grab a town plan; work out where I think the walls were and go out and prove myself right.
It’s such a thrill when you find that remaining section of wall, that place called Porte de something, or some other clue just where you expected it to be.
Often there are 2 circuits: the ancient or medieval wall and another one usually marked by an extensive inner ring road or boulevard or a charming linear park or garden. This is nearly always the Renaissance wall alignment when the town had expanded and the old walls became useless in the face of cannons. So a new circuit was built with low walls backed with extensive banks and star shaped ramparts. The medieval or ancient circuit leaves clues as it nearly always has curved sections and these stand out amongst the mostly linear streets patterns.
So far, in Brussels, I have found both but not yet traced the whole circuits or found out much about them.
It’s a surprisingly good way of discovering a City. The walls explains a lot about the character of the various districts, but also walls tend to fairly randomly take you through central places as well as peripheral places. So the exploration takes you to places you would otherwise not get to.
It’s my form of Guy Debord’s Dérive https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9rive. He was founder of the Situationist International and believed a flâneur without a preconceived purpose would find out the unexpected. Ofcourse, I do have a purpose, but the route of the walls and the tooing and frooing to find the correct alignment add an element of the random.
More details when I find them!
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