[make3]

It's surprising that they're not doing that systematically around the building, but then again I guess that applies to a large part of the city as well.

One always wonders which incredible books we lost, from amazing mysterious old philosophers. The burning of the library of Alexandria is such an incredible sadness

[irdc]

> It's surprising that they're not doing that systematically around the building

There's a very good reason for that: archaeological techniques improve all the time. The idea here is to leave something for future archaeologists.

[vasco]

> It's surprising that they're not doing that systematically around the building, but then again I guess that applies to a large part of the city as well.

In some places in Italy, Greece, Malta, probably others I don't know, people always joke that you shouldn't try to ever do any renovations lest you end up finding something and lose your house. Some places you're almost guaranteed to find stuff if you just dig once or twice.

[arethuza]

There is a wonderful museum it the Italian city of Lecce that started when someone went to fix some plumbing in their house and ended up finding so much amazing historical stuff that they ended up opening the house as a museum:

https://www.museofaggiano.it/en/home/

And that's just one house in one city in one country!

Edit: I strongly recommend the museum, Lecce and indeed all of Puglia!

[contingencies]

Thanks for the recommendation. What else would you highlight in Puglia for food/nature/history?

[arethuza]

The whole region is awesome for food and wine - we did a walk (over few days) from Santa Maria di Leuca to Otranto - sometimes along the coast and sometimes in paths through the lovely countryside. We started and ended that trip in Lecce - staying in a few agriturismos along the way, all of which had sublime food.

We've also been to Bari as well - which has a lovely old town as does Otranto - where the town centre is basically one large fortress.

One very pleasant surprise we had was using the Frecciarossa express train - we had two business class seats for a journey of a couple of hours and it was less than 50 euros and it was extremely comfortable!

[contingencies]

I was really looking for some points of interest rather than a tale of walking and sitting, but thanks anyway.

[tinkertrain]

I live in Bologna and went to Puglia at the end of last year for the first time, loved it!, here are some highlights off the top of my head:

- We stayed a few nights in an _Agroturismo_ near Cisternino that makes olive oil, our room was actually a _Trullo_ [1], a type of building typical of the area. There are many such places.

- If you want to see lots of Trulli in a picturesque town, Alberobello is beautiful but quite touristy. Still worth the visit imo.

- In Cisternino, they have these amazing restaurants (that is, if you eat meat) that are basically butcher shops where you choose the meat you want and they grill it for you. One of the specialties are "bombettes". The town itself is pretty.

- In Martina Franca, you have to try (again meat) "Capocollo di Martina Franca", which is like the Parma ham of the region. You can probably find it throughout Puglia, but the town is nice.

- Ostuni is a very beautiful white washed town.

- Lecce is well worth the visit, I can't really remember all the restaurants we visited, just one for seafood "Il Vico Del Gusto", we liked it a lot.

- Coming from Lecce but you can probably find them in other places in Puglia are the pastries "pasticciotto", which is a shortcrust pastry filled with custard cream, (sometimes they add other ingredients). Yum.

- Another typical dish of the region is the pasta "orecchiette con le cime di rapa", which is this ear-shaped little pasta with broccoli rabe, garlic, chili flakes, olive oil, and sometimes anchovies. Simple but very nice.

Hope that helps/convinces you to go!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trullo

[Zardoz84]

Spain, in some cities like Merida, hapens.

[cubefox]

> One always wonders which incredible books we lost, from amazing mysterious old philosophers.

You might be interested in The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, a historical novel about such a lost work.

[Zardoz84]

Also, the movie was good. And the 8-bit era game was very popular.

[cubefox]

I didn't know there was a game. The movie is great, but it focuses on the crime plot and unfortunately leaves most of the historical/philosophical/linguistic meat out, which is not surprising when you compress a 500 page book into a 100 page screenplay. I guess an adventure game would actually be more suitable for incorporating some of the things the film left out.

[pezezin]

The game is called La Abadía del Crimen and as far as I know was only released in Spain and never translated to any other language, so even though it is a cult classic in Spain, it is pretty much unknown outside.

[cubefox]

Apparently there is a remake which was also translated into a few other languages:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/474030/The_Abbey_of_Crime...

[ninjalanternshk]

By not excavating the whole city they leave work for future archaeologists. :)

[damnitbuilds]

Excavation with our soon-to-be-outdated techniques is needless destruction.

We should only excavate what is about to be destroyed.

( And we shouldn't destroy stuff just to put up yet another shitty modern building. )

[M95D]

> now Paris wants to soften the hot, bare square in front of it with trees and shade.

It's not a building.

[damnitbuilds]

It was a general point.