The Old Quarter
History, meet your new neighbour.
The Old Quarter remains the beating heart of the island’s heritage, and now, thrillingly, it beats right next door to a basement excavation.
Wander the narrow streets and breathe in the centuries: the carved corbels, the worn limestone thresholds, the timber balconies in their faded greens and ochres. Then look up, just a little, to where a steel frame rises cheerfully above the rooflines, introducing the old town to its ambitious new neighbour. The contrast is, the developers assure us, “a dialogue between old and new.” The old does most of the listening.
History here is wonderfully accessible. A medieval wall, helpfully exposed by the works next door. A church whose foundations now share groundwater with a car ramp. A streetscape lovingly preserved on one side and lovingly redeveloped on the other, so you can compare the two without walking very far at all.
Come for the atmosphere; it is genuinely irreplaceable, which is precisely the point. Photograph it generously. The quarter has stood for half a millennium, and there is no reason at all to assume the bit you’re looking at will be there next year.
Untouched? Increasingly, surrounded.
