Braavos, the Secret City, the City of a Hundred Isles*
On the other side of the narrow sea, a city lies sprawling amidst a hundred islands -- a broad, flat expanse of pea-green water has a city proper at its heart, a great sprawl of domes and towers and bridges, grey and gold and red. Two lines of stony ridges rise from the sea at its entrance, their steep slopes covered with soldier pines and black spruce, and between them stands the great Titan of Braavos, an enormous statue of black granite and bronze, with blowing green hempen hair and giant fires in the caves of his eyes. Ships pass beneath his legs, where arrow holes and murder slits make part of his purpose known, and he bellows out a great cry to announce their arrival.
Beyond the initial ridges lies a lagoon, followed by the rest of the city, flat and without further juttings. Purple-hulled galleys swarm around the edges instead of walls, spit from a great Arsenal at the center of the lagoon. The city itself is made of many small islands, linked by decorated arched stone bridges spanning innumerable canals. Many grey stone houses poke up from the streets, built so close that they lean upon each other; they are very tall -- four and five stories, thin and with sharp-peaked tile roofs like pointed hats. A few houses are built above the canals so that they form tunnels over them, and small, slender boats wrought in shapes of water serpents are poled along the waterways. Huge flat-bottomed barges form part of the traffic as well, as does the occasional fancy floating house, flaunting lanterns of colored glass, velvet drapes, and brazen figureheads. Off in the distance, one can see a massive aqueduct, its mighty arches marching south to bring water from the mainland.
*Partially transcribed from A Feast for Crows and thus copyright George R. R. Martin.
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