My City

Photo by Kevin Martin Jose on Unsplash - Not the city I'm talking aboutA little while ago I watched a five-second clip - an ancient, weathered column. That was all it took to identify the exact place where those images had been filmed. A moment later they widened the shot, and I recognised the precise spot. It was a city. My city. Childhood memories stay imprinted in the mind far, far longer than those accumulated in adulthood. In the square full of columns where that footage was shot, I used to go often with my grandmother, as a child, to the fruit and vegetable market - with that strong, distinctive scent of a herb market. As a teenager, I would sit on those low walls and lean against those columns with my friends, talking about the things teenagers talk about, dreaming and living. Those columns, like other corners of that city, were my world. And the pizzeria nearby, which tempted us every afternoon with the fragrance of freshly baked focaccia. Ancient cities have a particular…