Sofia Chalkiadaki

I run most mornings along the old Venetian walls, and the stretch near El Greco Park is still my favourite because so few visitors ever walk it. On video I follow the grass-covered bastions south toward Martinengo, explaining how the fortifications were built to withstand a siege that lasted over twenty years, and I stop where the writer Nikos Kazantzakis is buried, reading the line carved into his gravestone. The Psiloritis mountains sit in the distance on a clear day, and I always point them out before we finish. I keep a steady pace so the walls have time to register.