after a while , i stopped seeing places , monuments , buildings , street names , and only focused on details : a faded inscription in latin , warning not to trespassa solitary , bygone memory in marble hanging on a brick wall ; a holy water basin that , after centuries of indiscriminate remodeling and reuse of sacred spaces , now had found its final life as a swimming pool for birds ; a beautiful carved door with a single blackened brass knocker decorated with a lions head , which had a dark stamp on the wood frame ; an iron guardrail constraining a first floor window and preventing who-knows-how-many nocturnal escapes , destroying love stories and dalliances alike .